It’s not everyday that an animal gets an obituary (or at least a mention in the New York Times). But Alex was no ordinary parrot. Trained by Harvard/Brandeis psychologist, Irene Pepperberg, Alex was the subject of numerous studies and research papers on animal cognition and language acquisition. We ran a story about him and Pepperberg earlier this year, about how he helped Pepperberg raise money for her research during these lean funding times. He died last week due to natural causes, according to the Times. He was 31.