GoKawiilBruce the kea—a species of alpine parrot native to New Zealand—lost his upper beak in an accident as a young bird. But that hasn’t stopped him from becoming the dominant male in his kea community (known as a “circus”) at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve. According to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology, Bruce achieved his alpha status via a unique fighting method, essentially “jousting” with what remains of his beak.
Researchers already knew Bruce was special. Back in 2021, scientists at the Kea Animal Minds Lab at the University of Auckland studied Bruce and other non-disabled kea and found that Bruce exhibited unusual preening behavior to compensate for his missing upper beak. He figured out how to use small pebbles for that purpose, wedging them between his lower jaw and tongue and then rubbing them along his feathers. Other non-disabled keas occasionally played with pebbles, too, but they chose larger ones and never used them for preening.
So Bruce didn’t learn this behavior by watching other birds; he figured it out on his own. The authors concluded this was evidence of keas’ high problem-solving abilities and possibly an example of deliberate tool use. It’s also why Bruce’s caretakers at the reserve have never fitted him with prosthetics, believing it would only cause him stress and force him to re-adapt his behavior all over again.
No contest
Now Bruce is challenging a fundamental assumption of so-called “contest theory”: that the larger, better-armed opponent in a conflict will usually win the fight. Bruce’s circus consists of nine males and three females, and the researchers observed 162 male-vs-male interactions over four weeks. Bruce was involved in 36 interactions and won them all, thereby cementing his alpha status. Bruce also had the lowest levels of stress hormone metabolites, was given priority access to the four central feeding stations on account of his rank, and even had a non-mate remove debris from his lower beak, the only individual in the circus to be so honored.