How Bruce The Broken Beaked Kea Became King Of His Circus

Bruce surprised researchers by turning his physical disability into a successful advantage, both behaviorally and physiologically.

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Bruce the Kea on a rock checking the photographer out. Despite lacking his entire upper mandible, this parrot is a formidable rival and alpha male in his small group. (Credit: Alex Grabham)

A recently published study reports on a parrot that’s missing his entire upper beak who developed a behavioral innovation that allowed him to reach the top of his circus. (A “circus” is the collective noun for a group of Kea.) This parrot is an endangered Kea, Nestor notabilis, known as Bruce (or Kati). He resides in captivity at the Willowbank Wildlife Reserve in Christchurch, New Zealand.

“Bruce is the alpha male of his group,” the study’s lead author, behavioral ecologist Alexander Grabham, a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha (the University of Canterbury).

“He achieved this status by himself with the aid of a completely novel fighting technique — a jousting thrust with his exposed lower beak — that beak-intact kea cannot replicate,” Dr Grabham explained.

During jousts, Bruce targets the head, wings, beak and legs of his opponents in close contact without making physical contact with them. When his opponents are farther away, Bruce will run and jump and kick at them as he jousts. These competitive jousts have effectively intimidated his…