Blue-throated macaws learn by imitating others

First evidence of imitation from a third-party perspective outside of humans

September 04, 2025

Behavioral Biology

Two macaws sit on wooden perches in a room, separated by a window. In front of them are two experimenters; the one at the back gives a hand signal indicating a turn. — The naïve bird (in the front) passively observes a conspecific demonstrator interacting with a human trainer in the neighboring test room. The demonstrator performs ‘Wing flapping’ in response to a specific hand command while the naïve bird observes the interaction as a third-party.

© Adrian Azcárate (audiovisual@loroparque.com)

The naïve bird (in the front) passively observes a conspecific demonstrator interacting with a human trainer in the neighboring test room. The demonstrator performs ‘Wing flapping’ in response to a specific hand command while the naïve bird observes the interaction as a third-party.

© Adrian Azcárate (audiovisual@loroparque.com)

To the point

Imitation: Blue-throated macaws learn new behaviors by observing interactions of their conspecifics. When they observed how other animals reacted to specific hand signals from humans, the birds reproduced those reactions when subsequently shown the same hand signal.
Learning differences: Animals that were unable to observe showed significantly slower and less accurate learning compared to the observing blue-throated macaws.
Evolutionary significance: The results suggest that third-person imitation is not limited to humans. Parrots may perceive conspecifics as equivalent to themselves and could be capable of taking the perspective of third-parties.
Study: The study was conducted by an international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence, in collaboration with the Loro Parque Fundación

Imitation and cultural evolution

Two blue and yellow parrots, with a window between them and a female experimenter in front of each. The one in front makes a hand gesture suggesting a turn, and the front parrot is about to perform the turn. — The naïve bird (in the front) passively observes the interaction between a human trainer and a conspecific in the neighboring test room, as a third-party. The conspecific performs ‘turn 360 degrees’ in response to a specific hand command.

© Adrian Azcárate (audiovisual@loroparque.com)

The naïve bird (in the front) passively observes the interaction between a human trainer and a conspecific in the neighboring test room, as a third-party. The conspecific performs ‘turn 360 degrees’ in response to a specific hand command.

© Adrian Azcárate (audiovisual@loroparque.com)

In humans, learning social norms and traditions often require third-party imitation of two or more interacting community members in order to integrate into groups, adopt group-specific behaviours and participate in cultural practices. Blue-throated macaws live in complex social groups, like most parrot species, and the group composition changes frequently over time. This necessitates faster integration of individuals into new social groups and faster group synchronisation. Third-party imitation of conspecifics may facilitate those processes by learning group typical behaviours, coordinated movements or gestures.

The study: third-party imitation in macaws

Esha Haldar and colleagues from the Comparative Cognition Research group stationed at the Max-Planck research facility in Loro Parque, Tenerife, tested naïve untrained macaws in third-party imitation. In their study, now published in Scientific Reports, the researchers tested a naïve test group who passively observed a conspecific demonstrator performing arbitrary rare intransitive actions (i.e., actions without an obvious goal and not involving any object) in response to specific human gestural commands. For example, they observed how another parrot lifted a leg in response to a raised index finger. Directly afterwards, the observer received the same gestural commands by a human experimenter and was rewarded upon showing the correct response. Other actions included rotating on the perch, shaking the head, vocalizing and flapping the wings, each in response to specific hand gestures. An equally naïve control group was tested correspondingly, in the absence of third-party demonstrations.

The test group learned more target actions in response to the specific commands, and also learned them significantly faster and performed them more accurately than the control group. This implies that this macaw species is capable of learning by observing the interactions of conspecifics without directly engaging with them, i.e., by third-party imitation.

Evolutionary Implications of this Advanced Social Learning Capacity

“The findings are remarkable because they show for the first time that third-party imitation exists in a non-human animal,” explains Dr. Esha Haldar, the study's lead author. “ Human children start imitating from birth but develop the capacity for third-party imitation only from their second year of life, when they also develop the capacity for perspective-taking. While our findings are not direct testimony for perspective-taking capacities in macaws, the findings suggest its presence.”

Implications for social and cultural dynamics

“Parrots are ideal models for studying imitation,” adds Auguste von Bayern, senior author of the study. “These highly social animals live in dynamic fission-fusion societies, where individuals frequently form new sub-groups. Third-party imitation of movements and gestures may enhance integration of individuals into newly formed groups and may generally foster social cohesion and bonding. This suggests that imitating appropriate behavioural responses may provide adaptive benefits in this highly social macaw species.”

Text: Esha Haldar, Auguste von Bayern, Sabine Spehn