A pied flycatcherISTOCK, ANDYWORKSMost birds learn their species’ songs at a very early age. This ability may be innate, according to a study published Monday (June 12) in Nature Ecology & Evolution.
A pair of researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden discovered that in two bird species, the pied flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca) and collared flycatcher (F. albicollis), fledglings as young as 10 days old learn to discriminate within their own species’ songs.
Further investigation revealed that this ability arose even before the fledglings hatched. When the researchers swapped eggs from one species to another species’ nest, the birds were still better at distinguishing between songs in their own species. The team also cross-mated parents to create hybrid offspring and found that the fledglings still had a preference for the pied flycatcher songs. "This shows that something built-in to the genome influences the perception of sounds in a remarkably specific way, since the songs of both species are ...
