A disabled kea parrot is the alpha male of his circus

cell.com

30 points·zdw··12 comments

Keas are amazing birds. There is a funny video from a CCTV camera that was setup to discover who kept moving road cones, turns out it was a kea:

https://old.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/12dkeex/...

This paper is interesting but I do wonder if a kea with a disability in the wild would be an alpha, when food was not provided by humans.

Of course a disabled kea in the wild can have a family, just as a three legged dog can have a family pack.

They, like many parrots, are social and live in groups of up to 10-20 birds.

~ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-the-alpha-wolf...

Circus, in this case being the collective noun for the kea (New Zealand alpine parrots).

Given species intelligence isn't this FDR?

we have nothing to Kea except Kea itself

Just wanna say birds are amazing in general. I really hope they along with cephalopods and fungi get their shot at intelligent civilization after we're gone.

Thanks to this article my WOTD is: allopreening - The mutual preening of two birds. Probably one of the most obscure words I've come across recently.

You may also like allogrooming, which takes place in a wide variety of species

> circus (the collective noun for a group of kea)

Seems like a useless feature of the language. What's the point of using a unique name per bird group? To signal your bird obsession level?

In agreement, it seems to me that where this word is used, the more generally used "flock" could be used with no hindrance to communication.

It is the same for humans.

Don't call oldies disabled, it's like calling children useless.

Trump is a demented alpha male that currently runs a circus too. This is what really poorly understood.

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