Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Rest in peace, Alex the parrot

I have a soft spot for parrots (having taken care of one--or should I say, having been bossed around by one--for several years) so it made me sad to read that Alex, an African Gray parrot who was used in language research, was found dead on Monday at the age of 31. Dr. Irene Pepperberg bought Alex at a pet store and taught him how to count and identify different objects by color and size. Scientific American did a neat video segment on Alex a few years ago, but if you don't have Real player and refuse to download Windows Media Player (wise choice), here's an embeddable video of Alex from YouTube:





Poor little guy.

1 comment:

Gina said...

Awww. This makes me miss my family's beloved pet Cockatiel, Julia. (Not that she could talk or do neat tricks. The only thing she had in common with Alex is that she was grey.)