Apollo is an African gray parrot with a deep love of pistachios and millions of social media followers. He also has the brain power of a human toddler, according to his owners. “He’s very bubbly, he’s very outgoing, he wants to really perform for everybody,” said Dalton Mason, one of Apollo’s owners.
“He’s a complete and total showoff.” Dalton Mason and his wife, Victoria, went to their local pet store in St. Petersburg, Florida, to buy crickets for their gecko in 2020.
They ended up bringing Apollo home. “He had been surrendered by his original owner, and he was only 8 months old,” Dalton said. Victoria said she wanted a parrot since before she and her husband were a couple.
“Birds are the pets for us,” she said. “We’re bird people.” The couple have trained their pet parrot to identify objects, colors and some numbers.
He can ask “What’s this?” and then correctly distinguish among glass, metal and paper. He also greets humans with “Hey, buddies” and can complete simple puzzles. “Social customs are easy for him to pick up on,” Dalton said.
Apollo has a lot of fans. On a TikTok account run by the Masons, the bird has 2.9 million followers.
He also has 1.4 million subscribers on YouTube, and 1.3 million followers on Instagram.
He started making headlines back in 2022. “We attribute his social media success to his nature,” Dalton said. “He’s an attention hog.
” The Masons now dedicate their lives to training Apollo. They both .