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What's made the Scarlet Macaw interesting are really two things: why do they live for
so long? These birds live for way over fifty years and what we find is that they seem to
have a lot of genes that are believed to be associated with longevity.
So this may cast some light on why people and why these birds live so long. Other birds
you remember, live for a very short period of time. The second thing that we're really
interested in is their brain development. These are very smart birds indeed and again,
a preliminary look and analysis of the genome suggest they have a lot of genes involved
in brain development which fits knowing how smart they are.
The other interesting feature we find is a lot of genes associated with heart fitness
with cardiovascular fitness and with the ability to fly long distances. That's important because
these birds cover very large areas in the Amazon Rainforest where they live.