How come parrots, etc., talk but chickens don't?

[Irishman]

Colibri, one term confused me. When you say “conspecific”, do you mean within the same species? If so, I think I understand what you were saying.

[FranticMad]

But chickens DO imitate humans, Pat Buchanan in particular. In a dark room it would be hard to tell them apart.

[Colibri]

*Originally posted by elelle *
** I do wonder about the hummingbirds specifically, though. They move so much faster than most other creatures; how can they visually process that speed of input??? That’s what I was wondering in asking for studies on their visual accuity. **

Although hummers seem to be going very fast relative to their body size, they don’t actually move that fast in absolute terms. Normal forward flight speed is only 25-30 mph, although they can reach 50 mph. That’s not much compared to a Peregrine Falcon, for example. They don’t really need to process visual information any faster than most birds.

Originally posted by Irishman
Colibri, one term confused me. When you say “conspecific”, do you mean within the same species? If so, I think I understand what you were saying.

Yes, “conspecific” refers to members of the same species. Sorry, sometimes I use somewhat technical terms out of force of habit.

[C_K_Dexter_Haven]

… and here I thought con-specific meant it was specific to persons servin’ time in then pen.