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Birdshigher taxon

Parrots

Psittaciformes Wagler, 1830

A wild parrot chick develops a call unique to it, learned from whoever raises it. Swapping the eggs between nests is how anyone found out.

Parrots are one of only three bird groups that learn to produce new sounds, which is why they can reproduce human speech. Copying a sound and knowing what it means are different achievements, and the evidence for the second comes down to a small number of intensively trained individuals.

Parrots occupy an odd position: they are among the most familiar birds in the world and among the least well studied in the wild. What is solid is the vocal biology. They are vocal production learners — one of three independent origins of the ability among birds — and in at least one wild species the individually distinctive contact call each bird carries is learned from whoever raises it, demonstrated by swapping eggs between nests, which is the cleanest such result in any non-songbird. Regional dialects in contact calls have been mapped across a species’ range with boundaries sharp enough to place a recording. What is much shakier is everything the popular reputation rests on. The evidence that a parrot can use speech referentially is dominated by a single African grey trained over decades by a specific social method, who answered questions about novel objects well above chance — a real and demanding result, and one individual. Extrapolating from him to parrots, still less to a pet repeating a phrase, is not supported by anything. This page covers the biology. Parrots are among the most heavily kept birds on earth and most of what is searched about them is husbandry — diet, feather plucking, lifespan in captivity, whether one will outlive you — and NatureHQ does not give that advice.

Developed coverage · 76% complete · reviewed 2026-09-02

What this page covers

The order Psittaciformes — around four hundred species including cockatoos, macaws, amazons, lovebirds, budgerigars and the New Zealand parrots. Almost all the cognitive research is on one species, and a good deal of it on one individual.

Often confused with: Corvids, the other famously intelligent bird group, which are not close relatives despite the comparison being constant

Quick facts

Vocal learners
One of three independent origins among birds
Learned signatures
Cross-fostering shows contact calls come from the carers, not the genes
Dialects
Regional contact-call variants with sharp boundaries
Understanding speech
Demonstrated for one intensively trained individual, not for parrots

What parrots can detect

Assembled from the evidence graph. Each entry is a link the corpus can justify, with the limits it was recorded under.

Why a parrot can copy anything

Not a party trick. Parrots are one of the very few groups that can learn to produce new sounds at all.

Most birds develop their calls without ever hearing another bird. Parrots do not: they are vocal production learners, in the same narrow club as songbirds, hummingbirds, whales and us, and each of those groups appears to have arrived at the ability separately. That is the whole explanation for human speech mimicry. A system built to acquire arbitrary sounds from social companions will acquire whatever sounds the social companions make, and if you are a hand-raised parrot those are people.

Learning to produce new sounds is rare. It turns up in a handful of unrelated groups — songbirds, parrots, hummingbirds, some whales and bats, humans — and each appears to have arrived at it separately.

Well supported

Good evidence backs this, though some details remain open.

Vocal production learning is documented in three avian clades (oscine passerines, psittaciformes, trochilidae) and several mammalian lineages (cetaceans, some chiropterans, pinnipeds, elephants, humans), distributed across the phylogeny in a pattern indicating multiple independent origins. Comparative neuroanatomy identifies a recurring correlate: a direct forebrain projection to the motor neurons controlling the vocal organ, absent in related non-learners.

Who this applies to
A comparative statement about the distribution of the trait, with sharply uneven evidence quality between the groups listed.
Studied in
Aves, Mammalia
Why we rate it this way, and what the caveats are
Well supportedHigh confidence

The phylogenetic pattern and the neuroanatomical correlate are both well established. The uncertainty is at the edges of the list rather than in its shape — several species show partial or contested abilities.

How far it can be extended

The behavioural demonstration is strong for songbirds, parrots, hummingbirds and humans, and rests on smaller or more indirect evidence for cetaceans, bats, pinnipeds and elephants.

Caveats

  • Vocal learning is better described as a graded continuum than a binary; several species modify innate calls to a limited degree and whether they "count" depends where a line is drawn.
  • Evidence quality is very uneven: extensive for songbirds, comparatively thin for bats, pinnipeds and elephants.
  • A shared neural feature across independent origins may reflect a shared developmental constraint rather than a shared solution.

Still unanswered

  • Whether limited call modification in some primates and other mammals belongs on the same continuum or is a different phenomenon.

Last reviewed 2026-09-02

The evidence (3 studies)

What parrots do not have is song in the songbird sense — the long structured seasonal performance. Their vocal learning shows up in calls, which is why the parrot literature and the songbird literature look so different despite being about the same capacity.

The call that is learned from whoever raises you

The experiment that separates inheritance from upbringing, run in the wild, on parrots.

How we know

Swapping parrot eggs between nests to see whose voice a chick copies

Is a parrot’s individually distinctive contact call inherited from its parents, or learned from whoever raises it?

Nests of wild green-rumped parrotlets were fitted with cameras and microphones and monitored continuously through chick development, so every call made in the nest was recorded. Eggs were then cross-fostered: some chicks were moved to a different nest and raised by adults they were not related to. When the chicks began producing their own contact calls, those calls were compared with the calls of the genetic parents and with the calls of the foster parents.

What happened

Each chick developed a distinctive call resembling the calls used by the adults that raised it, not by its genetic parents. Parents were also found to use distinct calls when addressing different chicks, before those chicks had produced any calls of their own.

What it shows

The signature is learned. This is the manipulation the equivalent dolphin work has never been able to run, and it settles for parrots what remains inferred for cetaceans. The second finding is the odder one: an adult is directing a particular call at a particular chick before the chick has a voice, which looks less like a chick inventing a name for itself and more like being given one.

What it does not show

A learned individually distinctive label is not a name in the sense people mean. Nothing here shows one parrot using another’s call to refer to it, still less to a bird that is not present. It is one small parrot species with an unusual nesting arrangement, sample sizes for cross-fostered wild broods are necessarily small, and what the signature is used for beyond recognition is not established.

The controls — what makes this evidence rather than a story
  • Cross-fostering, which separates inheritance from upbringing completely — the two normally travel together and cannot otherwise be told apart.
  • Continuous recording from before the chicks called at all, so the parents’ behaviour towards a silent chick can be examined.
  • Chicks left in their own nests as the comparison.

From Vertical transmission of learned signatures in a wild parrot

A wild parrot chick develops an individually distinctive call that resembles the calls of whoever raised it — and swapping eggs between nests is what shows it is learned rather than inherited.

Well supported

Good evidence backs this, though some details remain open.

In green-rumped parrotlets, cross-fostering demonstrates that individually distinctive contact-call signatures develop with the acoustic features of foster parents rather than genetic parents. Parents produce distinct calls directed at individual offspring prior to the offspring producing calls of their own.

Who this applies to
One small neotropical parrot with an unusual nesting arrangement; parrots are a large and diverse group.
Studied in
Forpus passerinus
Why we rate it this way, and what the caveats are
Well supportedHigh confidence

Cross-fostering in the wild is the manipulation that fully separates inheritance from upbringing, and it is the design the equivalent dolphin work has never been able to run.

Caveats

  • A learned individually distinctive label is not a name: nothing here shows one parrot using another’s call to refer to it.
  • Sample sizes for cross-fostered wild broods are necessarily small.
  • What the signature is used for beyond individual recognition is not established.

Still unanswered

  • Whether parrots use another individual’s signature to address that individual, as dolphins appear to.

Last reviewed 2026-09-02

The evidence (2 studies)

The finding that parents were directing distinct calls at particular chicks before those chicks could call at all is the part that invites the word "name", and it is where care is needed. An individually distinctive label learned from a carer is a real and unusual thing. Using a label to refer to somebody — especially somebody who is not there — is a different property, and nothing in this work tests it.

The same question in another animal

Does a parrot know what it is saying?

One bird, thirty years, and a result that is genuinely impressive and genuinely narrow.

The short answer

Do parrots understand what they are saying?

A pet parrot repeating a phrase is imitating a sound. One African grey, trained for decades by a specific social method, could answer questions about objects he had never seen before — which is a different and much stronger thing, and it is one bird.

The distinction is between producing a sound and using it. Parrots are extremely good at the first, for reasons that have nothing to do with meaning. The evidence for the second comes overwhelmingly from a single individual, Alex, who was shown pairs of novel objects and asked which attribute was the same or different, and answered correctly well above chance — not just that they differed, but in which category. That is abstract concept use and it was tested blind. It is also, by design, a single-subject study, which its own researcher flagged as a limitation throughout. Two things it does not establish: anything about parrots as a group, and anything about reference to what is absent. Alex was answering questions about objects in front of him, which is where every non-human vocal learner’s evidence stops.

Check it for yourself

A parrot copying human speech is doing something genuinely difficult — and copying a sound is a different achievement from knowing what it means.

Well supported

Good evidence backs this, though some details remain open.

Vocal production learning in parrots supports accurate imitation of arbitrary sounds including human speech. Evidence that imitated speech is used referentially is limited to intensively trained individuals under specific social training regimes, most extensively a single African grey parrot tested on same/different and category tasks.

Who this applies to
Imitation ability is general across parrots; the referential use evidence is essentially one intensively trained bird.Do not extend this beyond the taxa listed — the popular version over-reaches.
Studied in
Psittacus erithacus, Psittaciformes
Why we rate it this way, and what the caveats are
Well supportedModerate confidence

That imitation and comprehension are separable is not seriously disputed. The positive evidence for concept use rests on a single-subject programme, which its own author treated as a limitation throughout.

How far it can be extended

Extrapolating from a single individual trained for decades by a specific social method to parrots generally, or to pet birds, is not supported.

Caveats

  • A single extensively trained individual is not a basis for general claims about parrots.
  • Concept use with the objects present says nothing about reference to absent things.
  • Nothing here describes what a pet parrot repeating a phrase is doing.

Still unanswered

  • Whether comparable performance can be obtained in other individuals and species, which would move the result from a demonstration to a finding about parrots.

Last reviewed 2026-09-02

The evidence (3 studies)

Parrot dialects

Yellow-naped amazons in Costa Rica have regional contact-call variants with boundaries sharp enough that a recording can be assigned to a region. That makes parrots a third independent case of geographically structured vocal culture, alongside songbirds and cetaceans — three lineages that acquired vocal learning separately and all ended up with local variants. It is one of the better arguments that dialects are a consequence of the learning rather than a separate adaptation.

The general phenomenon, of which the parrot case is one instance.

Local song variants are learned from local birds, not inherited. Populations a few kilometres apart can sing distinguishably different songs with no genetic difference behind it.

Established

Specialists would state this without hedging. Multiple independent lines of evidence agree.

Geographic variation in song in several songbird species takes the form of sharply bounded local variants that are acquired by learning from local conspecifics. Birds raised without exposure to the local variant do not develop it, and variant boundaries are finer-grained than the genetic population structure.

Who this applies to
Demonstrated in a small number of well-studied species across two bird groups; geographic song variation is far more widespread than the crisp dialect case.
Studied in
Zonotrichia leucophrys, Zonotrichia albicollis, Amazona auropalliata
Why we rate it this way, and what the caveats are
EstablishedHigh confidence

The combination that rules out the alternatives is present: variants are too fine-grained to track genetics, and laboratory rearing without local models fails to produce them.

How far it can be extended

Learned geographic variation appears independently in songbirds, parrots and cetaceans, which is the pattern expected if it follows from vocal learning rather than from anything species-specific.

Caveats

  • The sharply bounded dialects of white-crowned sparrows are unusually crisp; most songbirds show gradual clinal variation instead.
  • Whether dialect boundaries have any consequence for mating or dispersal is contested and varies by species.
  • "Dialect" is borrowed from human language and carries implications about identity and comprehension that the bird case does not support.

Still unanswered

  • Whether birds treat a foreign dialect as a different signal or merely as an unfamiliar version of the same one.

Last reviewed 2026-09-02

The evidence (3 studies)

Where dialects are covered properly

What this page does not cover

Stated plainly rather than trailed off.

Animal welfare

Keeping a parrot is outside NatureHQ’s scope

Parrots are among the most widely kept birds in the world, and most of what is asked about them is husbandry: diet, enclosure size, feather plucking, behavioural problems, and how long a bird will live in captivity. Those questions have real answers and real consequences for an animal, and they need a veterinarian or an avian specialist rather than a general nature site. NatureHQ covers the biology and does not give husbandry, veterinary or purchasing advice.

Where this applies: Global. Note that the keeping, sale and international movement of many parrot species is restricted by law, and the restrictions differ by country and by species.

When to get help: For any question about a bird in your care, consult an avian veterinarian. For questions about legality of keeping or moving a species, consult the relevant national wildlife authority.

What is still unsettled

  • Do parrots use another individual’s signature call to address that individual?

    Why it matters: It is the step that would put parrots where dolphins are — a learned label with a receiver who responds to it — and it has not been tested in a wild parrot.

    What would settle it: Playback of a bird’s own signature, resynthesised to remove the producer’s voice, as was done for dolphins.

  • Can the concept-use results be obtained in another individual, or another species?

    Why it matters: A single subject cannot distinguish a fact about parrots from a fact about one extraordinary bird and one extraordinary training programme.

    What would settle it: The same protocol run to completion with several birds, which is a decades-long commitment and has rarely been attempted.

  • What are the other four hundred species doing?

    Why it matters: Parrot cognition is almost entirely African grey and a handful of cockatoos and keas. The order is large, diverse and mostly unstudied in the wild.

    What would settle it: Field work on wild populations, which is difficult in tropical forest canopy and correspondingly rare.

Claims about this, checked

Things people have heard, and what the evidence actually supports.

The research behind this page

8 studies, newest first. Each one has a page explaining what it found and what it could not show.

2019Science

Evolution of vocal learning and spoken language

Vocal production learning is documented in a small number of distantly related lineages, and the independently evolved brain circuits supporting it share a recurring feature: a direct projection from forebrain to the motor neurons controlling the vocal organ, which is absent in non-learners.

2013Biology Letters

Open-ended song learning in a hummingbird

Adult birds changed their songs after their first year, and the changes tracked shifts in the local shared song type rather than being idiosyncratic drift.

2012Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Vertical transmission of learned signatures in a wild parrot

Each chick developed an individually distinctive contact call whose features resembled those of the parents that raised it rather than its genetic parents, and parents used distinct calls when addressing different chicks before the chicks called at all.

1996Proceedings of the Royal Society B

Regional dialects in the contact call of a parrot

Calls fell into a small number of regionally distinct types with sharp boundaries between them, and birds within a region shared call structure closely regardless of roost.

1987Animal Learning & Behavior

Acquisition of the same/different concept by an African Grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus): learning with respect to categories of color, shape, and material

The parrot answered correctly well above chance with novel objects, and could report which category the objects differed in rather than only that they differed.

1979Science

Can an ape create a sentence?

The great majority of the chimpanzee's signs were prompted: they reproduced signs a teacher had made moments earlier, or were produced while the teacher was signing.

1970Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology

A comparative approach to vocal learning: song development in white-crowned sparrows

Birds tutored during a sensitive period early in life reproduced that dialect as adults.

1964Science

Culturally transmitted patterns of vocal behavior in sparrows

Populations only a few kilometres apart sang consistently different song variants, sharp enough that a recording could be assigned to a location by ear.

Where to go from here

Each of these follows from something on this page — a relationship in the evidence, a claim people ask about, or the next mechanism along.

How complete this page is, and what it is still missing

NatureHQ publishes its own gaps. This page is at 76% completeness against what we would call a finished subject, and was last reviewed on 2026-09-02. It carries 4 claims and answers 23 mapped search questions.

  • no research from the last few years is attached — check for newer work
  • Parrot ecology, diet, breeding and conservation are barely covered; this page is about vocal biology and cognition.
  • Kea and cockatoo tool use and innovation are absent, and both are substantial literatures.
  • The conservation situation — parrots are among the most threatened bird orders, largely through trade and habitat loss — is named nowhere on this page.