The Holistic Parrot by Leslie Moran

In this article, Leslie explains how the Green-rumped Parrotlet is the most studied parrot in the world, and how it teaches us about human behaviour.

The research being done at the Parrotlet Project-Venezuela, is helping biologists understand more of how and why these Parrotlets vocalise and imitate specific behaviours. These insights provide researchers an awareness into how human behaviour patterns may have developed.

“On a good day”, reflects Karl Berg, Assistant Professor in Biology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, in Brownsville, “The Green-rumped Parrotlets (Forpus passerinus) we study here weigh 25 grams. They are the smallest parrot in the Western hemisphere, and it takes them 30 days for one to fly the nest. Now, they’re not fully mature in a behavioural sense, but to the eye these fledglings are basically indistinguishable from the mature adults.” What makes the Green-rumped Parrotlet the most studied parrot in the world? Let’s take a look into the remarkable discoveries that Berg revealed to me in this intriguing interview.

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