Scientists have known for a while that, in addition to saying things like “Polly want a cracker” (see Bonus Facts below) to entertain humans, parrots appear to vocalize their own names. What was a mystery until a few years ago was if those names were innate, meaning the chicks teach other parrots their own name, or if they were named by other parrots and then learned the sounds to identify themselves. A National Geographic research team headed by then doctoral student Karl Berg researched the green-rumped parrot and found that it is, in fact, the parents naming the chicks, rather than the chicks coming up with their own names.

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