Badly matched birds make troubled parents

From Burlington, Vt., at a meeting of the Animal Behavior Society

The troubles of parents who don’t communicate well take a toll on their offspring—even among cockatiels.

That’s the conclusion of work by Rebecca Fox, now of the University of Nevada in Reno.

She let captive cockatiels choose mates and gauged how well matched each pair was, according to a “personality” test of cockatiel traits.