Parrot Missing Half His Beak Became the Alpha Male of His Group

Bruce the kea parrot is missing his entire upper beak. By every measure of animal competition, he should be at the bottom of the social ladder. Instead, he’s the undisputed king of his group — and he got there by inventing a fighting style no other parrot has ever used. A report published on Monday, April 20, in Current Biology details how Bruce, an endangered kea parrot, achieved and maintained dominant status within his captive social group at Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in New Zealand. The findings mark the first documented case of a physically disabled animal of any species independently a...

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