Parrot Concepts

Parrot Genes Reveal Why the Birds Are So Clever, Long-Lived Researchers say the avian creatures are as genetically distant from other birds as humans are from other primates

Quote: "A series of studies published in Science(opens a new tab) in February 2025 provides the best evidence yet that birds and mammals did not inherit the neural pathways that generate intelligence from a common ancestor, but rather evolved them independently. This suggests that vertebrate intelligence arose not once, but multiple times. Still, their neural complexity didn’t evolve in wildly different directions: Avian and mammalian brains display surprisingly similar circuits, the studies found."

Intelligence Evolved at Least Twice in Vertebrate Animals | Quanta Magazine Complex neural circuits likely arose independently in birds and mammals, suggesting that vertebrates evolved intelligence multiple times.