Excellent mimics

According to recent scientific evidence, parrots can talk because of key structural differences in their brains which allows them to imitate sounds and human speech. Parrots are one of the few animals considered ‘vocal learners’, meaning they can imitate sounds. The brain of the parrot is structured differently from that of songbirds and hummingbirds, which also exhibit vocal learning. In addition to having defined centres in the brain that control vocal learning called ‘cores’, parrots have what the scientists call ‘shells’, or outer rings, which are also involved in vocal learning.