Woman’s African grey parrot is obsessed with butts and fart noises. It’s the joy we all need.

Parrots are incredible mimics. They can learn, remember, and near-perfectly imitate human language to the tune of hundreds or even thousands of words. But few people realize their vocal abilities go far beyond “Polly want a cracker.” Sometimes, domestic parrots can be quite adept at sound effects and even, yes, lowbrow comedy. Cruz the African grey parrot masters the “fart sound” Cruz is an African Grey Parrot who has become a massive social media star over the last few years, amassing nearly 400,000 combined followers between Instagram and TikTok. Why such a devoted following? It’s not just because he’s a mouthy little guy with an impressive vocabulary. Cruz has earned fans primarily with his sense of humor and signature sass. A few years back, he even learned to imitate a human fart sound—quite convincingly—which helped catapult him to new levels of fame. Note that he’s imitating a fart and not actually passing gas. Fascinatingly, parrots and birds in general do not fart. Popular Science writes that birds don’t carry the right bacteria in their guts to produce gas. Their digestive cycle is also incredibly short, meaning food doesn’t stay in their stomach for long, and they poop every 15 minutes or so. There’s just no time for gas to build up. But that hasn’t stopped Cruz from becoming obsessed with the sound. Cruz has learned that butts and farts earn him lots of laughs Cruz the African Grey has an appreciation for all kinds of toilet humor. In one recent video, he makes up a song about his owner’s “fat butt,” singing it over and over again as she laughs hysterically. Cruz also likes to follow up his fart noises with different punchlines. In one of his most-viewed videos of all time, he “lets one rip” and then says, “Wow.” Parrots aren’t just exceptional mimics; they’re extremely intelligent, too. Studies peg them as being about as intelligent as a 5-year-old human. So while they might not understand exactly what a fart is or what human laughter means, they are smart enough to pick up on the energy. They enjoy the burst of positive, bonding energy that comes from making their owners laugh, which explains why Cruz keeps dipping his toe in the potty humor well over and over. That crude and silly sense of humor? Yep, pretty on par with a 5-year-old. Parrots are intentional about what they repeat Parrots don’t understand the whole of human language, syntax, grammar, and contextual meaning. But they are hyper-aware of what happens when they say a word or make a sound, and they can understand how their noises provoke a reaction in context. They can learn a shocking amount just through natural interactions with humans. But with training, researchers have found that parrots can correctly identify hundreds of shapes and objects, do some limited counting, and understand basic descriptors like “bigger” or “different.” One famous African grey parrot named Alex learned on his own to say “I’m sorry” after he’d done something wrong. Not because he was actually contrite, but because he’d picked up on how humans used the phrase to de-escalate tense situations. Whatever the reason for Cruz’s fascination with farts, butts, vulgar sayings, and toilet humor, his hundreds of thousands of fans can’t seem to get enough. He’s a smile and a laugh waiting to happen, and a must-follow for anyone who wants to inject something positive into their social media feeds. One commenter summed it up perfectly: “If ever I’m in a bad mood I just have to listen to Cruz and I’m instantly cheered up.”