Abstract
A few animal species are capable of vocal learning. Parrots are well known for their vocal imitation abilities. In this study, we investigated whether African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus) emit specific vocalizations in specific contexts. We first described the vocal repertoire and its ontogenesis of four captive grey parrots. After a comparison with vocalizations emitted by wild and other captive African grey parrots, we observed that only three call categories were shared by all grey parrots populations, suggesting that isolated populations of parrots develop population-specific calls. Then, we artificially provoked ten different contexts and recorded vocalizations of four captive grey parrots in these situations. Parrots predominantly emitted call categories in some contexts: distress, protestation, alarm, asking (i.e. emitted when a bird wanted something from an experimenter) and contact calls. These results suggest that some calls are learned and can be used in specific contexts.
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Notes
Note that the recordings’ quality was not high, but good enough to identify salient call types.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank Marie Monbureau for her suggestions on how to improve the manuscript. We also thank Syrina Al Aïn, Mathieu Amy, Julie Chébaux, Colette Désaleux, Violaine Garcia-Fernandez, Philippe Groué, Valériane Jouffroy, Philippe Lenouvel, Alexandre Lerch, Marie Monbureau and Solène de Sevin for taking care of the parrots. We thank Dr. Michel St-Jalme and Dr. Jacques Rigoulet for their authorization to record parrots of the “Ménagerie du Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle” of Paris. We also want to thank the private owners of parrots for their participation in this experiment: Claire Bougeret, Marie Brandewinder, Olympe Chazara, Véronique Cluzeau, Loïc Fougères, France Garachon, Sophie Himene, Marylène Juif, Nicolas Lagière, Sylvaine Piana, Jérémie Roussière, Delphine Le Roux and Catherine Tourasse. Funding for this research was provided by the 6th PCRD Nest Pathfinder “What it means to be human”. The experiments comply with the French laws concerning animal care.
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Giret, N., Albert, A., Nagle, L. et al. Context-related vocalizations in African grey parrots (Psittacus erithacus). acta ethol 15, 39–46 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-011-0106-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10211-011-0106-9