BioSample

The budgerigar, also called the Australian Parakeet (Melopsittacus undulatus), is the most widely used parrot species for studying the neurobiology of vocal learning. It was the first parrot species where the vocal learning brain pathways was discovered, and found to uniquely have a core song learning system surrounded by a shell learning system, with the core similar to songbirds and hummingbirds (also vocal learners) and the shell unique to parrots. The brain pathways have convergent changes in gene regulation shared with human speech brain pathways. This sample was collected as part of a trio of samples (daughter in this case), by Timothy Wright and Justin Apodaca, supported by Erich D. Jarvis, and used to generate a high-quality reference genome of he daughter as part of the G10K-VGP Project and G10K Project.