The Wright Behavior Lab

Avian Communication, Learning and Evolution

The Wright Lab

Timothy F. Wright

Dept of Biology 
New Mexico State University
Las Cruces, NM   88003-8001
(575) 646-1136
email

About Las Cruces, New Mexico
About NMSU

Research support by

Huxley

Parrots of the Wild is published!” 
Hear a nice Podcast at the World Parrot Trust’s website.

This book can be purchased at Amazon.com with all proceeds benefiting the World Parrot Trust.

Welcome to the Avian Communication
and Evolution Lab

The Wright lab welcomes trainees of all races, ethnicities, religions, cultural identities, sexual orientations and gender identities. Motivated, thoughtful, curious students with a deep-seated interest in animal communication and avian evolution are encouraged to contact Dr. Wright.
 
Dylan Osterhaus birding in Parque Natural Metropolitano in Panama City, Panama.

Research in the Wright Lab focuses on the function, evolution and underlying mechanisms of learned vocal signals in birds. Across the animal kingdom, the ability to learn vocal communication signals is restricted to a few evolutionarily distinct groups (songbirds, hummingbirds and parrots among birds; humans, bats and whales among mammals). Parrots, in particular, are renowned for their vocal mimicry abilities in captivity, but less is known about how learning is used in the wild. Thus they present exciting opportunities for understanding how learning shapes communication behavior, how the function of learned vocalizations might differ between species, and how the underlying neural and endocrine mechanisms have evolved. 

These core interests have expanded through the years to encompass a variety of related topics including phylogenetic relationships in parrots, the evolution of long lifespans and advanced cognitive abilities, and the role of behavioral flexibility in species invasions and conservation. My students, collaborators and I approach these questions using a broad range of approaches including field observations, sound analysis, captive behavior studies, neural gene expression, interspecific comparisons, and molecular genetics. Students in my lab make use of these techniques or adopt new ones as appropriate to investigate their own questions in avian behavior and evolution.

Why can parrots talk?

Video produced by TED-Ed and written by Grace Smith-Vidaurre and Tim Wright

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