Parrots call baby chicks by name

HAMBURG: In a discovery that is likely to rekindle the debate about language in the animal kingdom, researchers in Germany have found that some parrots appear to give their offspring individual names.

Animal behavioural scientists at the University of Hamburg say that parrots use a distinctive call for each of their chicks, with no two chicks being given the same “name” call. The small South American parrots also apparently have name calls for their mates.

“The birds very definitely use a particular call exclusively with a particular bird and never for any other bird,” says Rolf Wanker of Hamburg University’s Zoological Institute.

“What is not yet clear, however, is whether these calls can be equated with what we would call names such as Hans or Fritz or whether they could be more generic labels such as ‘my baby’ or ‘my mate’,” he adds.

The studies were inspired by observations in the spectacled parrotlet’s natural habitat in Colombia. There individual parrots seemed to respond to specific
calls that other parrots in the same flock ignored.

“A mother bird had the uncanny ability to utter a cry that would result in her chick returning to the nest immediately amid the cacophony of the other parrots all around,” Wanker recalls.

“It was obvious that the baby knew it was being called,” he says. At the laboratory in Hamburg, studies showed that these name equivalents are fractional cries lasting between 90 and 120 milliseconds. The cry is distinctive enough to provide acoustic clues as to the identity of the individual uttering the call and also to the identity of the intended recipient bird.

“A mother bird uses a different call for her baby from the one she uses for her mate, and they respond with calls that correspondent to her identity.”

Similar findings have been achieved with certain primates and with dolphins. Many years ago, British TV science producer David Attenborough showed that macaque monkeys use distinctive alarm calls to alert other monkeys to danger.