Video: Disco the Rapping Parakeet

Birds—like Disco, the rapping parakeet—say the darndest things. In the video above, he’s like an iPod set permanently to shuffle, moving from Styx to beat boxing to the Flintstones theme song.

In a talent competition, which bird would win, Disco or Snowflake, the dancing cockatoo that shimmies to the Backstreet Boys? (Remember Snowflake?)

In the spirit of these great birds of the Psittacidae family, here are a few stories from our archives:

“Parrot Sunday,” Mar-Apr 2012
Fifteen years ago the yellow-eared parrot was presumed extinct. Its rediscovery in Colombia forced the Catholic Church to abandon an age-old tradition, and brought about one of the most amazing comebacks in the Americas.

“Over the Rainbow,” Jul-Aug 2010
Deep in Peru’s Amazon, visitors on a storied steamboat discover a bounty of colorful wildlife, from pink dolphins and scarlet macaws to giant river otters and black caimans.

“Parrots of the Caribbean,” Jul-Aug 2009
If you have heard of Bonaire at all, you may think of it as a haven for scuba divers or, maybe, loggerhead turtles. But this tiny island might also offer the best chance of survival for the yellow-shouldered Amazon parrot.