BigShinyThing

His last words, to his trainer Irene Pepperberg (link contains links to video of Alex) of Brandeis University? “You be good. I love you. See you tomorrow.”

Alex was an African grey parrot that Pepperberg bought in a pet store 30 years ago. By the time of his death last Friday, he had a confirmed vocabulary of more than 100 English words that he could apparently understand and use correctly, rather than merely ‘parroting’ them. Pepperberg has published dozens of scientific papers about Alex’s verbal, mathematical and cognitive abilities, and the two have appeared on a wide variety of television programmes and popular press stories. In the process, they have transformed people’s understanding of the mental abilities of non-human animals.

A necropsy performed over the weekend found no apparent cause of death. Alex had seemed in fine health the day before, and no problems were found in a checkup less than two weeks earlier.

Read more at Nature’s website. Image nicked from the New York Times report on Alex’s death.

See also recently published research on the cognitive abilities of crows from New Caledonia.

UPDATE: Alex may well be the first bird to get an obit in The Economist.