Mental Floss

BIRDS



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Lots of beach-goers find seagulls annoying, but usually the only harm they do is snatching away poorly-guarded snacks. On one particular beach, though, scientists have found that some gulls have a much more aggressive and grisly way of getting their meals

Matt Soniak






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Parrots have a unique brain region that may be the key to their uncanny talent for mimicry.

Shaunacy Ferro






Courtesy of Andreas Nieder

Crows lack the parts of the brain that we use to count—but they know 2+2 too. How do they do it?

Shaunacy Ferro




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The seagull—scourge of the beach-blanket snacker, parking-lot pest—is nobody's favorite. Birding guides will tell you that seagulls have no natural enemies, which is mostly true. But once in a while, somebody’s had enough.

Kate Horowitz






Doug Janson via Wikimedia Commons // CC BYSA 3.0

There are around 372 species of parrot, and they vary greatly. Let’s take a look at some that you might not normally think of as parrots, and some that are just plain spectacular.

Miss Cellania
Pedros Szekely, Wikimedia Commons // CC BY 2.0

We can admire flamingos or laugh at them (and we often do both), so we may as well learn something about them.

Miss Cellania