Top 10 Smartest Talking Birds In The World
By • Last Updated8. Cockatoo
Cockatoos are highly social birds known for their impressive talking abilities. They can imitate a wide range of sounds, but their capacity for speech depends largely on the quality of their training. Among the various species, the rose-breasted cockatoo, yellow-crested cockatoo, and long-billed cockatoo are particularly skilled talkers.
To learn to speak, cockatoos require special care and consistent interaction from their owners. They tend to mimic words that are repeated regularly, especially those associated with their daily activities. However, variations in tone can complicate their learning process. While they won’t pick up every word quickly, they can effectively mimic sounds and phrases with proper training.
Cockatoos belong to the family Cacatuidae, which comprises 21 species. This family is part of the superfamily Cacatuoidea, alongside Psittacoidea and Strigopoidea, all of which fall under the order Psittaciformes. Cockatoos are primarily found in Australasian regions, including the Philippines, eastern Indonesian islands, New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Australia.
Recognizable by their showy crests and curved bills, cockatoos typically have less colorful plumage than other parrots, displaying shades of white, gray, or black, often accented with color in their crest, cheeks, or tail. On average, they are larger than other parrots, although the cockatiel, the smallest species in the family, remains relatively small. The cockatiel’s exact phylogenetic position is still debated, but it is recognized as one of the earliest offshoots of the cockatoo lineage. The remaining species are divided into two main clades. One branch consists of five large black cockatoos from the genus Calyptorhynchus, while the second and larger branch includes the genus Cacatua, which features 11 species of white-plumed cockatoos, along with four monotypic genera: the pink and white Major Mitchell’s cockatoo, the pink and gray galah, the mostly gray gang-gang cockatoo, and the large black-plumed palm cockatoo.