Stuff You Should Know - The Parrot Episode

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

If you think parrots are simply mimics that fly, you're wrong. Tune in and learn about these colorful friends today. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Trills a Lot Bryant and there's Jerry Rowland whose bright plumage is

sticking me in the face right now. And this is, that was a great parrot. And this is Stuff You Should Know about parrots, which is a surprisingly interesting topic, Chuck. Nice one. Nice pick. That's good. Just do that. Do that the whole time. We're gonna hammer out like a means of communication just with that sound throughout this episode. Okay? Oh man, that'd be kind of great. You already broke character, Chuck. I know. I think to the relief of every single person listening to you. So you were surprised, huh? Yeah. I mean, I know parrots are neat or whatever, but I knew that they were probably one of the smartest animals or some of them are. Some are just dumb as doorknobs, but

there are plenty that are really smart that make up for the really dumb ones. But I just, no, I didn't know that they were quite this neat. And also one of my new favorite things is like watching little happy birds like hop around and sing. And there's a lot of parrots that do that. It's like one of their traits. Like they're really cute kind of animal. I love that in your mid 40s, you were turned on to the joy of birds chirping and jumping around. I didn't say I was turned on by it. Turned on to it. Oh gosh, there's a big difference between those two. Have you ever had any experience with parrots or known bird people? No. So tangentially, I was, Yumi's grandma has, or had a parrot. She passed a year or so ago,

but her parrot is still alive. She had a couple, Prudle and Brutus. And Prudle was fine, but Brutus terrorized Yumi when she was growing up. I mean, like terrorized her and they didn't see her for many years. And when I was, when I visited and met her grandma and Brutus, Brutus like at first was just kind of like ho-hum. And then you could tell the moment he recognized Yumi and he lunged at her. He was like, you, I remember you. After all those years, he still just did not like Yumi for some reason. Yeah. I mean, I've got some parrots and bird stuff that I'll pepper throughout when it's applicable. But bird folks, I mean, if you're a bird person, my experience has been bird people are just sometimes a little eccentric. Oh yeah. Bird people are definitely a certain

type. Just like cat people are a certain type and dog people are a certain type. But there's a lot of cat people and dog people. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. I think that's one of the things that makes bird people seem eccentric is there's far fewer of them. But one of the things I didn't realize it could be that could be also like the extensive stacks of paperback fantasy novels that just line their floors throughout their house that too. Yeah. But one of the things that I didn't realize is that birds are the fourth, fourth most popular pet in the United States, which makes sense if you think about it, but I never really thought about it. All mine, mine just stops after dogs, which are number one. Yeah. I mean, dogs, cats, what is it

fish? Yeah. And then birds. That's right. I would expect goats to be somewhere on there, but I think people just love seeing goats and not necessarily owning them. Yeah. Sure. Sure. But I think a lot of people who own birds come, especially parrots, come to feel the same way after they've bought a parrot as we'll see. Yeah. So should we dig into this thing? I thought we already had. So there are a lot of different kinds of parrots. They are, I mean, they're close to 400 species of the order. And I'd look this up in a couple of places. Citacy formies. What did you get? Yeah, I thought you were going to say citisines, but yeah, that's that's how I would have said it. Okay. Yeah. And we're talking like, you know,

if you think of a parrot, you probably think of like, oh, it's a macaw or an African gray, but if you've seen a parakeet or a lorikeet or a cockatiel or cockatiel, those are all parrots as well. Yeah. So I love birds as well. There's, there's a lot of different kinds of birds that are parrots. And some of them just don't even really look like it. You're like, no, that's an eagle, or I think that's a kind of vulture. Like they're a very, they're a really varied order, but they all have in common a couple of things that we'll see, one of which is a short beak that's curved usually, which is very, very powerful. And then they also have a certain kind of toe arrangement called the zygodactyl toe arrangement. We'll just talk more about in a little

bit. But other than that, they are really kind of varied, like I was saying, in size and shape and color. And even down to some kinds of species, they can be varied among the male and the female, so much so. I think there's one, oh, I can't remember which one it was, but it was a kind of parrot, a smallish parrot, where the males and the females look so totally different color-wise that they were thought to be different species for a very long time. That's right. That's the Solomon Island electus. Thank you. Show off. But thank you. So, you know, like you said, they vary in size. There are some that are so big, like the Kakapo in New Zealand that can be like a seven pounder. Did you see any videos of those guys? They're great. They can't even fly. They're

so big. No, they don't, they don't, they, they bound along. Yeah. Their wings, they don't work for flying, but they use them for stability because they mostly climb trees, but they're, yeah, they're ground-dwelling. They look like little furry or feathery mammals, basically. Sort of. I don't know why that hasn't been a Disney character yet. I don't either because they also seem to be very sweet. I saw some New Zealand, like, I guess, researchers who were tracking them. And I don't even think they put this one Kakapo under when they took a blood sample. It was just laying in their lap. And I think it was just like, just basically like, yeah, just hanging out, you know, like, go ahead, just take the blood and let me, let me go again.

So they're super, super chill. But yeah, they would make a perfect Disney character for sure. Yeah. So those are the big daddies. There are ones from New Guinea that are just a few inches, way less than an ounce. I think the highest synth macaw is generally the biggest, just in size. They can be three and a half feet long. They can have four-foot wingspans. And I think the, the kind of trademark characteristic when you think of parrots, though, are the vibrant colors. You know, some are like the gray African gray is mainly just gray that has a little bit of red. But when you think of parrots, you think of those really brightly colored blues and greens and reds and little rosy cheeks and stuff like that. Yeah. And I mean,

obviously, the reason why parrots have very bright colors is to attract mates. Like, that's basically the reason for anything to have a bright color unless it's showing that it's poisonous. And as far as we've ever found, parrots are not poisonous. But one of the specialties... That's what you think. Right. Dead by dawn. One of the specialties of the pigments in parrots that's apparently not found in other birds, though, Chuck, is that those pigments have antibacterial properties, which I guess keep them from getting like Wingrod or something like that. Yeah. There's, there's some, I think it's called

citico, oh boy, here we go, citico fulvans are those pigments. And they're found only in parrots. There aren't even any other birds that have these. Yeah. But I mean, other birds have colors, but they don't have that specific kind of antibacterial agent color pigment, right? That's right. And you mentioned the toes. That is a, you know, along with, I think, like owls and woodpeckers. And I think there are some other birds that have these zygodactyl feet. But that means they have the usual four toes, but most birds have three in one arrangement, like three up front, one in the back. Right.

In this case, they have two up front, two in the back. So Julia helped us put this together. And she basically points out that like, this means they have two sets of opposable thumbs. So that's why they're really good climbers. And they can hold on to a branch like it's, you know, till the sun comes up, dead by dawn style. Exactly. And if you've ever seen a parrot work a nut or a seed or something with the combination of the beak and those four toes, it's pretty, pretty dexterous. Yeah. That's also, again, how those cacophos can climb trees without any ability to fly.

They, I mean, they can maneuver, they can hang. I believe there's an upside down hanging type of parrot, which I'm not sure why it hangs upside down. Maybe just to show off that it has zygodactyl toes. Maybe. But they can do a lot with those things. And yeah, in combination with their beak, they're really working it. Apparently their beak as well, that sharp, short, curved beak that all parrots have is extremely powerful. Oh, dude. They, they move independently of one another, lower beak and the upper beak, so it can exert a

lot of force. And, and that really helps out because a lot of their food are like really hard nuts and seeds and things like that. But they, they're nothing in the face of a parrot's beak. Yeah. It's, if you've ever been chomped down on by a parrot, it's rough. Yeah. They'll take a chunk of skin out. Well, they were, when I worked in Arizona, that restaurant in Yuma, Julianna's patio cafe. It was an outdoor cafe and they had the owner, Julia, had parrots. And I think there were like five of them just kind of behind where you eat on these stands, not even caged.

And they were mean as snakes, not to her. They were, but if you were not her and you went up and you were like, oh, let me give you a little ear scratch. One of those things could just fly its little head around and chomp down on your finger. And it feels like it's in a vice. Yeah. Well, you're lucky. A sharp vice. They could have taken your finger clean off probably. There's, there's anecdotal stories that, that we are not able to verify, but this, it's definitely worth mentioning that a large parrot could snap a broomstick with its beak, which is, if you read it, it's really impressive.

When you say it out loud, you feel very foolish. A little bit. I mean, sure, I guess it depends on the broom, but it's really old week, rotted, termite rotted broomstick. Yeah. Let's just say it's really, really a lot of force. And my finger can vouch for that. Was that some of the peppering you alluded to earlier? That's one, one kind of pepper. One grain of pepper, gotcha. I had a bird. That'll come up later.

Oh, I can't wait for that one. Yeah. So Chuck, you were saying that like, they wouldn't bite Julia? Juliana. Juliana, Julia, because she was part of their flock, as we'll see. And it turns out that there are, some parrots get along with other species of parrots and even other species of birds and other kinds don't so much so that when you read like a parrot owner's guide, they're basically like, if you're going to get, you know, other birds do not get this kind

with this kind. Ironically, love birds are famously mean to other species of birds. But if you're in their flock, then you're, you're one of them. And that's one thing that, one reason why parrots make such great pets for so many people is because they imprint with humans really well and you're just a member of their family. And they're a member of your family. That's just the way it is to the parrot. If you're an outsider interloper, yeah, they'll take your finger off like it's an old broomstick. So Yumi was never ingratiated herself? I guess not. It's just surprising because everybody likes Yumi, you know?

I know. Like animals flock to her like snow white. Basically, yeah. She's always, she's got this lamb following around now. I don't know where that thing came from. It is cute. It is cute. The lambing is coming soon, unfortunately for them. Oh boy. Well, let's take a little break there then and we'll come back and talk a little bit about parrots in the wild. You're at the end of the road. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

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Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, so Chuck, we're going to talk about parrots in the wild, which is where they used to be more often than not. And still are. Like there's something like 300 and about 350, 360 known species of parrots. But a lot of them are dying off really quick as we'll talk about. But the thing about parrots we're learning is that they're really resilient.

Like they can adapt and find homes and make homes for themselves in new climates. So you'll find them typically in their preferred area around the tropics, around the equator, typically in the southern hemisphere. But you're also going to find them like living up in mountain ranges, high up on rocky outcrops. You'll find them in Chicago's Hyde Park. There's a bunch in Connecticut. They're kind of all over the place.

Even though no native species from the United States are still around, there's still plenty of like wild feral parrots that live out in the US. Yeah, when I was in Australia, we had our couple of down days. And you know, my buddy Scotty, our friend Scotty, came over to join us. And Scotty and I went down to Wine Country south of Melbourne, which is just some of those beautiful land I've ever seen in my life. It's gorgeous. And we were at a winery overlooking this huge vineyard and then like the sort of woodland

jungle and I saw these huge white birds flying around down there. And we were the only people there. We were there in the off season. So everywhere we went, we were the only two people kind of tasting. And so we got to hang out with the winemakers, which is cool. And they said, well, that was a cockatoo. And I was like, I was just a naive American. I didn't know they just flew around Australia like that.

And I said, just so you know, like they sell those in stores for a lot of money in the United States. And I said, it's just crazy to me that they're just flying around. Yeah, apparently there was a time not terribly long ago where you could see beautiful green cockatoos or parakeets, I'm sorry, flying around the United States until we drove them to extinction about a hundred or so years ago. Yeah, the Carolina one, isn't there a North Carolina parakeet? The Carolina parakeet, yep. It was just this gorgeous green, beautiful parakeet that was native to the United States.

And I saw something. So, you know, passenger pigeons were also famously driven to extinction. The last Carolina parakeet died in the same cage that the last passenger pigeon, Martha, died in at the Cincinnati Zoo. So the Cincinnati Zoo had the honor of keeping captive the last passenger pigeon and the last Carolina parakeet. And killing them. Right.

They had this one zookeeper who was in charge of strangling the last one just to get it over with because they couldn't stand the tension any longer, you know, they like to get it over with. Oh, I've got a joke that I so I'm not going to tell because I would upset bird lovers. Tell me later. I'll tell you later. Okay. So these parents, they mainly stay up in the trees, obviously, they do come down if they're going to drink something. And sometimes if they need to find something to eat, if they can't get

it up there. And they generally do this kind of follow the humans patterns of kind of hanging out doing the stuff during the day and sleeping at night, unless you're a cacopo or a night parrot. And they are nocturnal, which is I think they're the only two of the species. What's neat about those cacopos, too, is they, from being nocturnal, the eyes have migrated from the sides of their heads toward the front of their face. And they've developed this kind of puffy feathers around their eyes. So they're also known as the owl parrot, because they've started to kind of resemble the owl. And the owl is typically nocturnal as well. Are you going to get a cacopo?

I think I might actually. There's only 150 left and I could probably be arrested. But at the very least, I'm going to give it a shot, you know. So they are omnivores and they will generally eat seeds and nuts and plants and fruits and things of insects. But if they need to eat, you know, a parrot's going to do what a parrot's going to do. This is crazy. And this is, you know, this can cause problems. I think the African gray can feast on corn, which has caused problems with corn crops. Here's the crazy part. In New Zealand, this is the crazy part. In the kind of mid 1800s, in New Zealand,

keys, KEAS, were discovered to be, and this is sort of horrifying, eating sheep and attacking sheep in the middle of the night. Yes. Well, I guess it was in the middle of the night because they're not, they're not nocturnal. But in my mind, it's a horror movie and it happens in the middle of the night. To me, the most, the, like the middle of the day makes things even more horrific. Sure. Because things aren't, bad things aren't supposed to happen in the middle of the day. It's true.

They're supposed to happen at night in the woods, you know. Good point. Not, not in the middle of a field in the day. So seeing some parrots attack and eat a sheep in the middle of the day, that's bad news. But those things actually, they look a lot like eagles, more so than parrots to me. So you give them a pass. Yeah, that's fine. What I'd like to see, I'd like to see them all try to carry off a sheep together with

teamwork, you know, but I don't think that's how it goes. Well, there's your cartoon. That's like a Ziggy cartoon. I think they, I think they put parrot repellent on, because, you know, they, back in the day, they would just kill them all and let God sort them out. That's what happened to the Carolina parrot key. Yeah, exactly. But they, you know, eventually they were like, we can't just kill these keys.

Like we're a more evolved, you know, humankind at this point. And we got to stop this stuff. We got to protect them. So they've looked for ways to, to keep from having to do that. And one of them is that parrot repellent on the sheep's bellies. Which it's probably like that stuff you tried to use on your fingernails to keep from biting them. I used to coat my fingers in that. But you just slather it on a sheep's belly and call it a day.

Yeah, it's very bitter. One thing I did want to add though, when you were talking about their range and they can end up in weird places, I remember when we would do commercial shoots in Pasadena, California. And we would have the unlucky parrot location, which is basically anywhere in Pasadena on any given day. You could be near a bunch of parrots making a ton of noise and you can't shoot. You know how it is with sound. Like you can't, you can't pay the guy to turn off his blower or his lawnmower.

That guy. Yeah, but you can't. Yeah, I want 200. And really put me out. Free reign at the craft services table. But yeah, those Pasadena parrots, they have disrupted many of film shoot. So yeah, so you're like, well, wait a minute, there's not native parrots in the United States. How are there a bunch of parrots in the trees in Pasadena?

Well, people let their parrots go or people die in their parrots escape or what have you. And like I was saying before, it's like they're really resilient. And once they start forming breeding pairs, even though they have like a really low reproduction rate, as we'll see in a second, they can survive. They can make new niches for themselves, which is pretty cool. But there's a lot in Florida, Texas and California. I think every kind of species that has a population is supported in all three of those states. Right.

And the Connecticut one is just a, that's a very weird thing. Yeah. And Chicago's Hyde Park too. It's like the roof caves in on people's houses in the winter in Chicago. There's so much snow and it's so cold. Like how are parrots surviving? But apparently they do. It's crazy.

Yeah. So they live and this is, this is pretty great. This is where stuff you should know things intersect or love of collections and groupings of animals. Nouns of assemblage. Yeah. Pandemonium of parrots is what it's called for good reason. And like I said, because they are super noisy and can be aggravating in large numbers when

they're out in the wild and they live together. They help each other out. They feed with each other. They look out for each other. They keep track of each other and they communicate with each other. All those squawks and screams that you hear when a bunch of, when a pandemonium is gathered is them talking to each other. And they might be saying, you know, film crew or they might be saying snake or monkey.

Like look out. Yeah. I also have the impression from spending hours and hours of watching beautiful parrots of all types seeing and be happy that, that they're just basically sharing how they're feeling at any given point sometimes too. And that a lot of times it's real positive. You know, they're talking about how great things are, how beautiful the day is. It could be anthropomorphizing, but it really, really seems that way.

They just seem like kind of a happy, happy type of animal. I'm like, I want to buy into that too. I'm with you. Just go ahead. It's like, prove me wrong. I'll go give you 10 years. And in that 10 year span, I'll enjoy these parrots for what I think they're doing. I agree.

I mean, we all laughed at Yumi early on and now she's got that lamb following her around. Like miracles can happen. We have to get some of that, that nail biting stuff to slather on the lamb's belly in case it runs into some keys. So they mate and they have little babies. They are generally monogamous and males and females work together to raise the kid and to care for the little baby from the moment that it's an egg. They will sit on it for 18 to 30 days and even take turns.

I think the mom usually does most of the sitting while the male goes out and gets some food, but the male can also be like, why don't you stretch your legs and stretch your toes? You get Taco Bell this time. Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, but for the most part, the male gets the food or something like that. But the lovebirds also are famously monogamous and so much so that when they're separated, when a breeding pair is separated, when they're brought back together, first of all, they'll start to lose energy and get real depressed and sad.

And then when they're brought back together, they reform their bond by feeding one another with their beets. That's very cute. Isn't that sweet? Yeah, I kind of have a thing for lovebirds now. They're just super cute and pretty and so happy. You know what birds are not monogamous? Which ones?

Casual sex birds. Roblo birds. Yeah, but good for them, you know. So sure, they're just out there doing their thing, not hurting anybody as long as they're up front about what they're in there for, you know? Roblo. Is this from his sex scandal from like 35 years ago? No, I just think of Roblo as like being difficult to pin down and, you know,

loving life, having a good time, just doing his thing. That's what I think of. He's really worked to change that image over the past three decades. He really has. Not with me, but I recognize what he's been trying to do. Okay, famous lethario, Roblo. So, well, I also dated myself because I would say a good third of our listeners are like, who's this Roblo guy?

It's like Mad Magazine. He's the guy from Parks and Rec. Oh, yeah, that's right. He was. So they might know. To them, yeah. I was going to say it's like Mad Magazine making fun of Spiro Agnew when we were little and we're like, who is the Spiro Agnew?

Right. To us, Roblo is the sex player from St. almost fire. Sure. Who made a sex tape. To them, he's the happy dad in Parks and Rec. I also think of him as a dude from West Wing. I don't remember what his character's name was. No need to email.

I can look it up myself. I never saw that show. Oh, you didn't. It's good. I think you'd like it. All right. Even if you don't like Aaron Sorkin, you'd like West Wing. He's a little wordy for me, but sure.

Sure, yeah, a little over the top every single second of every single show. But West Wing was his, it just worked perfectly for him. Yeah. I don't want to knock Aaron Sorkin. I'll just say he has a fondness for typing. But so there was this one Roblo sketch on Sarant Live. I know we've talked about before. But remember when Aaron Sorkin was busted with mushrooms in the airport?

No. So that news came out on a week when Roblo was hosting Sarant Live. So they did one of those famous walk and talk shots from West Wing. And in the background, suddenly it converts from the West Wing that they're walking through. And now they're being chased in a black and white movie by a giant like Iguana. And so they're still walking, talking about the administration of the president. But they're also jogging, running away, looking behind them at this giant Iguana. It has really, really great stuff.

So how many breaks have we taken, Charles? Just one. Do you want to take another one or keep going a little more? I think maybe let's wait one minute. Let's talk about their intelligence and altruism. And I think those are two lovely topics. Well, before we do that, I've got one more thing about mating. So they actually, when they reproduce, they'll lay between like two and eight eggs at a time.

And their incubation period can be really fast, like 18 days, 30 days. But they also usually only have a couple of chicks survive. And they spend a lot of time and energy raising their young, almost to a human-like degree. Not for 18 years, but for up to like four years in some cases, the offspring, the chicks will grow up with the parents. So they actually have a very low reproductive rate. So it's a big problem when humans come along and kill off a pair of populations, because they're slow to recover, they're slow to reproduce.

So just put that, that little pin in your hat and smoke it. I just can't get that one right these days. So parrots are super smart, like we talked about. And there are a couple of really great examples of how and how they display this. And one is, is they can use tools. Like they have seen parrots use sticks to like scratch their heads and stuff like that. This one is amazing. They found that cockatoos have been observed using sticks to drum on logs

as part of a courtship sort of mating ritual, because nothing women love more than a drum solo. You know, I know. It really just every woman alive thinks a drum solo is the greatest musical thing you can do. That's usually when I go to the bathroom too, truth be told. Yeah. I mean, it's a hats off, but yeah, it's just kind of whatever. They don't happen much anymore.

No, you don't see those. But the one that knocked my socks off, Chuck, was there's at least the greater vasoparrot. They will use little pebbles or whatever to grind up seashells. And the male does this and the male will eat the seashell and regurgitate it into like this vomity calcium rich paste as an offering to a parrot female he's trying to mate with, which sounds gross and weird until you realize that other birds eat calcium rich shells or chew on them or whatever to strengthen the shells of their own eggs. But parrots are the only known birds to actually use tools to grind the shells up to make them

easier to digest and the males offering it to the woman is like a basically like, hey, look at how well I'm taking care of you and our kid. I'm regurgitating seashells for you that I'm grinding up. That's astounding tool use. Like you just do not see that elsewhere, except in like maybe primates here or there. Well, I mean, if you want to talk about cool, their altruism is something that you don't see much in the animal kingdom at all. Very few non-human species show this trait and no birds before just a couple of years ago

were even on this list. They even tested crows out because they're super smart. And I think in 2015, and they gave them an altruism test and they're like, nope, you guys failed the test. But they did this. And this was from just January of last year in current biology. Ironically, like just a couple of months before the coronavirus hit. They're like, we don't have anything to talk about this month.

Exactly. They're doing some important work. And they did this exercise where they got these birds together, these parrots, and they put them in pairs and they basically put a wall between them with a hole and they were separated. And one of them had a token and one of them had that you would trade for food. But one of them didn't, one of them had the food and one of them had the token. So these birds literally figured out how to work together to exchange like here.

You take this token because you've got the food, feed yourself. But remember me if the rolls are ever reversed. Right. Which is a totally different thing. It's a reciprocity. So these, these macaws showed that, or was it the African gray? I think the African gray is the one that passed. Yeah.

And they're typically known as like possibly the smartest birds of all time. But that like, in addition to like, here you go, have this, have the, like, take this token and get yourself some food, even though I'm not getting anything back. When the, when the rolls were reversed, the birds would do the same thing. So they would get their turn basically later on. And so cool. Yeah. You have altruism and reciprocity, tool use.

They're also very famous for mimicry too, which a lot of birds can mimic sounds. I saw a video of a minibird in the wild, I guess being filmed with a camera as well as a video camera, because it made an exact sound of a digital camera taking a picture. It was astounding. It sounded like they dubbed the, the sound of a camera over this bird. I wonder about that on some of these videos. This is, I mean, I hope it was legit. I mean, it was, it looked like a legit wildlife video or a clip from one, but a lot of birds can do that.

But the thing is, other birds can't do what parrots can do. Like their mimicry is at a whole different level compared to other birds. And they're basically the only bird we know of that can mimic a human voice. I think that's a great place for a cliffhanger, right? Sure. All right, we'll come back and we'll talk more about mimicry right after this. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road.

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Oh man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life.

In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars. If you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So we're back and we're talking about birds vocalizing and mimicking things.

They have voices that vary by region, which is really neat. They have different dialects, basically. And if a parent moves to a new area where they have a different kind of dialect, they will adjust what Julia refers to as their accents to fit in, which is really, really amazing. Yeah, it is amazing. And I was reading up on a study about that, Chuck, and they found that a bird that lives, like these dialects will be kind of regional, but some regions butt up against one another. But some regions butt up against one another.

So if you're in a nest that is adjacent to two regions, they'll kind of use it. They'll go back and forth. And they found like the differences in the basic structure of the calls are different enough that they're dialectical. But then within these nests, there's different variations, slider variations within the dialect. So like they're communicating into some really astounding degrees. And like I was saying that, you know, parrots in particular are the only ones smart enough to mimic humans. And one of the reasons that they do this is they're able to manipulate their tongue,

which is one of the things that we do to produce speech. So they're not just mimicking a sound like they're actually forming words very similarly to how humans do. They are also capable of hitting like pitches, lower pitches that are more in step with how the human voice sounds. So it sounds more like a human that they're mimicking. But then also they seem to have an additional layer in their brain, in the region of their brain that they use to mimic that other animals don't have, that other birds don't have, which implies that they're just smart enough to do this too. Yeah, so I had a cockatiel.

Oh, they're getting some pepper, everybody. I had a cockatiel when I was a kid. I was like, I mean, I feel like we had this bird for a few years, but I was definitely in the, you know, 10, 11, 12 year old range. And our little gray cockatiel was named Dolly. And I, you know, knew that you could teach cockatiels to say things. So I was, my brother and I were all over this, you know, no one else in the family really cared. But we got a record to teach us how to do this.

And it involves tons and tons of repetition. You can't just go up to a bird and teach it to say something a couple of times and they'll do it. It requires a lot of repetition. And so we taught, by the end, Dolly could say, hello. And hello, Dolly. And Dolly could do the wolf whistle, like, oh yeah, like when someone walked in the room. Dolly learned to do the charge.

And then the one I was most proud of is I taught Dolly to do the like a jungle bird. And it was my favorite thing that Dolly could do. So Dolly would sit on my shoulder and like kind of nibble at my ear lobes and watch TV and stuff and peck at my hair. And that was sort of the extent of it. It was a tremendous mess. And you know, we're, I guess we can go and talk about that.

If you have a bird, it's feathers and poop and seeds everywhere. Yeah. Well, because when you have a parrot, you're supposed to give it a lot of time outside of the cage, which we'll talk a little more extensively about that. But yes, they're a big mess for sure. But Dolly learning to talk was one of the coolest things I did as a kid. And people love to hear parrots say things. They, if you go and type parrot into YouTube,

the third thing that comes down is the next offering is parrot's cursing. Because it's just funny. People want to see a parrot tell someone to, you know, buzz off. Yeah, buzz off if you're lucky. If they haven't lived in a frat house for a few years. More often than not, they just straight up curse. And every once in a while, you'll see a story about some parrots that had to be moved from like a wildlife preserve because they were cursing at like the people who came by to see them or whatever

and teaching little kids bad manners. Well, I mean, there are all kinds of videos. It's very fun. Kids ask your parents if you can watch parrot talking videos because some of them curse. If there are some funny ones too with parrots and Alexa's talking to Alexa. And I think one of them that was a parrot that the lady, the owner went back and ordered or was checking on things that were ordered because this parrot would order stuff. And the parrot kept trying to order a fart.

What did Alexa come up with? I don't know. I mean, she just said, what's on the shopping list? And Alexa said bird seed, fart. Right. That's pretty great. I want to know what Alexa would imagine that to be. Well, I mean, I think if you say to burp or fart, they'll do it, right?

I don't know. I haven't tried that, but I'm going to right after this. You really haven't? No, I haven't. Very impressed. I'm 44 years old and I've never tried that. All right. Well, I'm almost 50.

So you'll come back around and think it's funny again. You know what's funny, Chuck? You have mastered one of the, I think, 60 things that the Kamasutra says every person should master before they die and that is to train a parrot to talk is one of them. Isn't that neat? That's in the Kamasutra? Yeah. I had no idea.

I ran across that. So we can't talk about parrots and especially talk about parent intelligence and not talk about Alex the parrot, which who we have talked about before, he showed up in our How Zero Works episode because he's as far as anyone knows the, I think if not the only bird, possibly the only other non-human animal who's demonstrated a grasp of the concept of zero. That's a really weird concept that most non-humans can't grasp or possibly any other non-humans can't grasp. Alex could, which kind of goes to show you what a smart parrot he was.

Yeah, I think they figured in the end, Alex was about as smart as a five-year-old person and not from like depth of vocabulary. Alex knew about a hundred words, which is sounds like a lot compared to Dolly, but I think the Guinness record is a parakeet named Puck who learned about 1700 words and change. So a hundred is good, but Alex could understand concepts like bigger and smaller and same and different and would make up his own word combinations. Like I think the first time Alex ate cake, Alex called it yummy bread, which is really pretty astounding and maybe kind of scary.

He supposedly is the first animal to ask an existential question, which he saw himself in the mirror and he asked what color. And so his handler and researcher, Irene Pepperberg, who wrote many, many papers from the 70s to the early 2000s about Alex, whose name it turns out is an acronym for avian language experiment. It's a little saddened by that, you know, like the robot whose name is like an acronym for something in science. It's just kind of dehumanizing. But Alex, he asked like what color and they took it to mean like he was asking about himself,

like he recognized himself in the mirror. And apparently, parrots frequently talk about themselves in third person like that parrot or that parakeet Puck. Like Ricky Henderson. Right, right. Who held the record for the most words. He talked about himself in third person and apparently he once said it's Christmas and that he was happy about it being Christmas and Puck loved everybody.

That's great. Yeah. But I mean, that's like, that's pretty intelligent if this parrot understands that it's Christmas day and everybody's happy that he loves everybody. But I'm just impressed with parrots. In addition to being cute, they also have brains. Brains they in looks. That's right. So I think we got to at least talk about the notion of pirates having parrots.

It is not necessarily just a movie trope or a book trope from literature. It makes sense in a way they may have wanted when they're out at sea some companionship. Having a dog or a cat or a goat or a lamb following you around on a ship isn't a great idea. Like a bird kind of makes sense and they could eat the hard tack and the crackers and sip on the rum and it makes sense to have birds. They were they were they were going places where they might have been like, I don't know if there's any hard evidence, but nothing about it seems like there's no way that could have been true.

No, what I saw is that that's possibly the case, but that the age of discovery was at the second time that Europe fell in love with parrots as pets and that the initial trend started when Alexander the Great invaded India and took some parrots back to Greece with them and they ended up spreading to Europe. And actually the Alexandrine parrot is named after Alexander the Great because it's apparently one of the ones that he he brought back with them. And then parrots just, I guess, fell out of fashion and then when people started going to like Brazil and coming back from Brazil, they came back with parrots on their shoulders

and the trend started again. I love it. I did mention that they were they're not the easiest pet to take care of. They are messy. They are demanding. They're pretty needy. They need lots of attention. If they don't get it, they can be kind of disruptive and destructive.

Not trying to talk anyone out of getting a bird, but it's a lot to bite off if you've never had one before. Oh, yeah. Yeah, no, it's I mean, like even even more of a commitment, I would think, than say like getting a dog, not just because of the enormous amounts of attention that they need from you, but they're really long live too. Yeah, that's the deal. Much longer live than a dog or a cat.

Like in the wild, parrots typically live maybe 30 years. I think the cacopo lives possibly 90 years in the wild. But in captivity, parrots really live for a long time, 40, 50, 60 years. There was a major Mitchell's cockatoo named Cookie. That's the oldest living documented parrot in captivity. He lived to 83, I think. Yeah, like you often see parrots in people's wills because you have to pass them along to somebody. And for the life of me, I don't know what happened to Dolly.

We had Dolly for a few years. It's just kind of one of the things when you're a kid, sometimes you have pets that just go away and your parents are like, they're on the farm now. They're like, Dolly, who? Stop asking questions. Who's Dolly? Yeah, I don't know. Let's never speak of Dolly again.

Dolly may have gotten out, I don't know. No, but that happens. I mean, they escape sometimes. Yumi's grandma's parrot outlived her and they went to live with one of her friends who keeps birds. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, they're really long-lived pets. But part of the reason why they think that there are or why they know there are feral parrot populations around the United States is because people just let them go. They're like, I had no idea what I was getting into.

Just fly free parrot. I'm sorry that we ever met. It's like flushing that baby python down the toilet. A little bit, a lot bit actually. But the thing is, it's good on the one hand that that just doesn't automatically kill the parrot, that they can actually, they might find a local population that they can join. They might find another one and start a local population as a breeding pair. It's not like a death sentence to parrots.

Like you should never just release your pet into the wild. That's just bad juju. But if you do with the parrot, it's not a death sentence is what I'm saying. One of the bigger problems of that is that you have still placed a demand on the bird market. And the bird market is not like, there's not some nice family in the central rural part of your state that breeds parrots and that's where all the parrots come from. The parrots that you get typically have been stolen from a nest in Brazil and brought to the United States.

I saw something like 800,000 parrot chicks a year are removed from nests to feed the demand of the exotic bird market. And a lot of them don't survive. They die on the way. And as I was saying before, the reproductive rate of parrots is low enough that once you get enough chicks removed from their native habitats, they're not getting replaced fast enough. And then that leads to a collapse of the population.

And it can mean extinction if that happens across the large enough range. Yeah. And there are plenty of countries, including the United States that have done past legislation to try and put a dent in like this importing and poaching and stuff. But at the beginning of this year, there was a study in global change biology that said that a third of parrot species are threatened with extinction. I think 171 of the species are near threatened or critically endangered. The cacopo that you talked about, you mentioned that they're only like 150 of those left.

Yeah, I really don't want the cacopo to go extinct. Luckily, they're in New Zealand and New Zealand loves nature. So they're in a good spot. Yeah, that's true. That's a good point. Yeah. Are they trying to breed them at least? I think they're protecting the heck out of them and they're just leaving them to breed

amongst themselves. They live on three isolated remote islands that don't have any introduced predators. So they're in a precarious place, but they're in about as good a place as they could be for the precarious state they're in. Yeah. And it's not just people poaching. It's humans encroaching with developments in less and less natural habitat. It's obviously the repercussions of climate change when things like the Australian wildfires

break out. It's a reduction of habitat and the poaching that's put a real dent in the para population. Yeah. So they're saying, well, they've actually identified some hot spots of para biodiversity around the world that said, okay, if these places, if the governments in these places move to protect parrots, parrots are going to be okay. So like the Northeastern Andes, the Atlantic forest that stretches from Brazil, inland and Argentina and Paraguay, if these places can protect the parrots, their parrots should

be fine. So hopefully they will. And then on the demand side, if Europe and Japan will kind of get over their love of parrots or figure out a different way to get parrots, a more sustainable way than that would have a big effect to you. Are they two of the biggest defenders? From what I saw. Yeah, because that act in 1992 that the U.S. passed cut poaching in half from what I could

tell. So it was like a really big, had a big impact, but Europe and Japan just continued on without that kind of legislation, I think. That's great. Well, not great for them, but great for us. Up with parrots, everybody. And if you want to get a little pop of joy out of your day, watch this one minute video called Bird Sings in Synchrony with Piano, Incredible Cute, three exclamation points.

Not incredibly cute. It is one of the sweetest things I've seen in a while. And you'll be like, yep, Josh is right. Birds can just be happy little souls. Yeah, or birds cursing. That's fun too. You got anything else? Got nothing else.

Well, that's parrots, everybody. Like I said, go watch some parrot videos. And in the meantime, it's time for Listener Man. I'm going to call this Plugging Another Podcast. Oh, nice. We don't often do this, and it's not from professional envy or anything. It was just, we would be doing it all the time if we did it too much. Oh, okay.

Yeah, nice one. Hey guys, my name is Vivek Gaur, G-A-U-R. I've been listening to your show for the past six years. I'm a physiotherapist working in the suburbs of Delhi. And part of my job is to provide domiciliary care where I have to go see my patients at their houses and therefore need to drive every day. You're one of my favorite podcasts to listen to,

and I'll listen to you guys almost every day when I am driving through the chaotic traffic. It gave me something worthwhile to listen to. It's interesting, and I like your humorous conversational style. I wish after COVID gets over, you would do a live show in New Delhi someday. How about that? Yeah, maybe. Think we could draw a crowd?

I'll have a crowd of one at least. Yeah, Vivek will be there. Yeah. I just want to know that someone is listening to you guys every day from the other side of the globe, and you inspired me to launch my own podcast. Nice. If you would please shout out to Vivek Gaur physiotherapist podcast

that is V-I-V-E-K-G-A-U-R physiotherapist podcast. Although it's in English, which is Hindi in English, you guys will not understand the majority of it, LOL. But keep doing what you're doing. Best which is that is Vivek. Thanks a lot, Vivek, and good luck on your podcast. That was very nice of you to plug it, Chuck. Yeah, check it out if you speak English.

And we'll see you in New Delhi someday. Don't know when, but someday, sure. And if you want to get in touch with us like Vivek did, you can. Send us an email to stuffpodcastsatihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never ever have to say bye-bye-bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Shatikular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, international banks, K-pop groups, even the White House.

But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me, and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes, because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.