| General Non-Fiction posted September 17, 2021 |
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See video please
Meet Bruce
by damommy
This is Bruce, a kea, which is a large parrot living in New Zealand.
Bruce has lost his upper beak, thought to be the work of an animal trap, and cannot use his beak to do his normal duties. But he adapted amazingly well. He hooks a small pebble against his lower beak with his tongue, and uses that to preen his feathers.
It’s not just any rock. He searches for just the right size and thickness to do his grooming needs.
Thought to be intelligent birds, the use of tools, however, is a new concept, apparently developed by Bruce. Typically, keas do not use tools, so his creativity shows an amazing intelligence. Some scientists thought this was just a happenstance, and Bruce didn’t really know what he was doing. But repeated search and use of these pebbles show that not to be true. He knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t pick up a pebble for anything else. If he drops his chosen pebble, he picks it up and continues grooming himself.
He is provided with soft food, but has been observed eating harder food by scaping it against other objects.
He now lives at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch with a flock of keas. Bruce is a remarkable bird indeed.
Bruce has lost his upper beak, thought to be the work of an animal trap, and cannot use his beak to do his normal duties. But he adapted amazingly well. He hooks a small pebble against his lower beak with his tongue, and uses that to preen his feathers.
It’s not just any rock. He searches for just the right size and thickness to do his grooming needs.
Thought to be intelligent birds, the use of tools, however, is a new concept, apparently developed by Bruce. Typically, keas do not use tools, so his creativity shows an amazing intelligence. Some scientists thought this was just a happenstance, and Bruce didn’t really know what he was doing. But repeated search and use of these pebbles show that not to be true. He knows what he’s doing. He doesn’t pick up a pebble for anything else. If he drops his chosen pebble, he picks it up and continues grooming himself.
He is provided with soft food, but has been observed eating harder food by scaping it against other objects.
He now lives at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch with a flock of keas. Bruce is a remarkable bird indeed.
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