Parakeets prefer intelligent men, study finds | Nature

Charles Darwin has come to theorize, but the hypothesis has proved difficult to verify in animals.

An experiment conducted by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, whose results were published Thursday (10) in the journal Science, seems to give a affirmative answer to this question about evolution.

The researchers tested 34 Australian parrots, endemic to the country but present in many other regions, as they are popular pets.

One of the women observed, for example, was placed in the presence of two men and chose one. The researchers knew which one was chosen because they counted how many minutes she had spent with each of them inside the cage.

Next, the unselected male was trained to learn how to open two types of boxes containing seeds. The favorite male did not receive this training.

The woman watched the two men in front of the boxes, cruel exercise for the favorite male, who only managed to show his incapacity, while his rival seemed to open.

Finally, both males were returned to the cage with the female.

The researchers thought that she would change preferably after noticing the poor performance of her favorite male. And that's what happened: Eight of the nine periquits of the test group changed hands and spent more time with the man who had been previously deprived, but who was smarter.

"Direct observation of cognitive abilities may affect the partner's preference criteria," conclude the authors of the study, which demonstrate that "cognitive abilities can be selected directly by the partner".

And intelligence would provide a reproductive advantage, that is to say in terms of evolution.