Oz birds lure mates with ’scary movie effect’
January 19th, 2011 - 6:27 pm ICT by ANIWashington, Jan 19 (ANI): Have your ever used a horror film to bring your date closer? Well, a new study has revealed that Australian birds use the same ’scary movie effect’ to attract female attention, by hitchhiking mating signals onto the calls of predators.
Male splendid fairy-wrens, a sexually promiscuous small bird native to Australia, are known to sing a special song each time they hear the call of one of their predators, the butcherbirds.
New research from scientists at the University of Chicago has revealed that this seemingly dangerous behavior actually serves as a call to potential mates - a flirtation using fear.
The study involved painstaking field research playing sound clips to splendid fairy wrens at a conservation center in Southern Australia. Experiments determined that the “vocal hitchhiking” of male birds is a courtship behavior that uses predator calls to grab the attention of female birds.
“We have shown that females do, in fact, become especially attentive after hearing butcherbird calls,” said Emma Greig, PhD, first author of the study and currently a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University. “So, it seems that male fairy-wrens may be singing when they know they will have an attentive audience, and, based on the response of females, this strategy may actually work!”
The study has been published in the journal Behavioral Ecology. (ANI)
- 'Selfless' fairy wrens are in fact carefully calculating accountants - Mar 19, 2011
- 'Virtual mates' shed light on role of romance in parrot calls - Aug 04, 2010
- Why some birds baby sit others' offspring - May 03, 2011
- How male great bustards use Sun to woo the ladies - Feb 16, 2010
- Brain cells wired for team work - Nov 04, 2011
- Male spiders eavesdrop to beat rivals - Jan 08, 2012
- Some birds can learn other species'' alarm calls - Nov 12, 2008
- Male peacock's tail plumage and eyespots attract females for mating - Apr 28, 2011
- Light pollution screws up songbirds' sex lives - Sep 17, 2010
- Tiny male mice sing songs to impress females - Jan 29, 2012
- Female damselflies prefer 'hot' males - May 22, 2010
- Male fish extremely choosy about mates - Oct 12, 2011
- 'Experienced' female lizards more likely to be courted by males - May 15, 2010
- Tiny birds have more complex songs than big birds - Nov 24, 2009
- Feeding the birds can delay their chorus at the crack of dawn - Jan 09, 2011
Tags: attentive audience, australian birds, conservation center, cornell university, courtship behavior, dangerous behavior, female attention, female birds, flirtation, greig, horror film, jan 19, male birds, male fairy, postdoctoral researcher, scary movie, small bird, sound clips, southern australia, wrens