Artistic Science

restlesslyaspiring:

songofages:

harry-truman:

casatoo:

sugar-spider:

a-whole-clan-of-johnnys:

interesting-fact:

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holy shit dude

If you don’t know Alex, I suggest you read up on him. Because yeah, sure, any parrot can mimic, but Alex was one of the first to prove on many occasions that he understood the meaning behind the words he said.

With that in mind, just think about what he said for a sec. Alex had to understand on some level that death means leaving. That’s fucking mindblowing.

Alex also was shown to have the intelligence of a young child, anywhere from 3 to 5 years old. He could do basic addition and subtraction, and independently taught himself the concept of zero (something that most CIVILIZATIONS couldn’t do!) He had a vocabulary of thousands of words, some of which he made up himself, and had deep interpersonal bonds with many scientists and trainers, as well as other parrots. 

Alex the parrot is basically the coolest bird ever.

animals are often smarter than you think. There is/was a gorilla they taught sign language to. And one day she asked for a kitten. they gave her a stuffed animal but she signed sad. She wanted a real one. She was allowed to choose one from a litter. 

She named it All Ball and she loved it.

Except one day All Ball escaped from the cage and was hit by a car. And this shows you just how much animals can understand. They signed what had happened but didn’t think the gorilla would understand. But she started making weeping, howling/crying sounds and the signs for bad, sad, etc. 

And then “Sleep, cat”. She understood death.

She’s had two kittens since then.

Animals understand more than you think. Depends on the animal, yes. 

Alex was an amazing creature and so is Koko, the signing gorilla.

Koko’s still alive.

(via mothfloss)