Who is Alex The Parrot

Alex (1976 - September 6, 2007) was an African Grey Parrot and the subject of a thirty-year (1977-2007) experiment by animal psychologist Irene Pepperberg, initially at the University of Arizona and later at Harvard and Brandeis University. Pepperberg bought Alex in a regular pet shop when he was about one year old. The name Alex is an acronym for Avian Learning EXperiment.

David Chandler (September 11, 2007) Farewell to a famous parrot: Alex, who could talk and count, dies at 31. Retrieved on September 11, 2007. His successor was Griffin.

Before Pepperberg's work with Alex, it was widely believed in the scientific community that a large primate brain was needed to handle complex problems related to language and understanding and that birds were not intelligent and could only use words by mimicking. However, Alex's accomplishments indicated that birds may be able to reason on a basic level and use words creatively.Scientific American (September 12, 2007), An Interview with Alex, the African Grey Parrot. sciam.com. Retrieved on September 12, 2007. Pepperberg wrote that Alex's intelligence was on a par with that of dolphins and great apes.Irene Pepperberg (1998), Talking with Alex: Logic and speech in parrots. Scientific American Retrieved on September 12, 2007. She also reported that Alex had the intelligence of a five-year-old human and had not even reached his full potential by the time he died. She said that the bird had the emotional level of a human two-year-old at the time of his death.