Join Ellen & Dalton Mason, creator and bird parent behind Apollo and Frens, for a look into life alongside the world-famous African grey parrot. You may have seen their videos on social media showing off Apollo’s incredibly impressive vocabulary, answering questions and even speaking in full sentences, which have earned the bird a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records in 2025 - on top of all the pistachios, of course. We discuss animal cognition and what makes parrots such great models for animal intelligence, the brain soup machine, bird-proofing a home, parrots video calling each other, and so much more.

Works Cited:

• "Birds have primate-like numbers of neurons in the forebrain" - Seweryn Olkowicz et al., PNAS, June 2016
• "Birds of a Feather Video-Flock Together: Design and Evaluation of an Agency-Based Parrot-to-Parrot Video-Calling System for Interspecies Ethical Enrichment" - Rebecca Kleinberger et al., Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2023
• African Grey Parrot flight calls: Peter Boesman, XC719450. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/719450

Links:

• Learn more about Apollo and Frens on their website: https://apolloandfrens.com/
• Follow Apollo and Frens on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok!
• For more information about us & our podcast, head over to our website!
• Follow Just the Zoo of Us on BlueSky, Facebook, Instagram & Discord!
• Follow Ellen on Instagram or BlueSky!