The greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator)FLICKR, WILFERD DUCKITTThe Yao people of Mozambique have cooperated with small birds called honeyguides for generations to find bees nests dripping with sweet, calorie-dense honey. Now, researchers from the University of Cambridge and South African institutions have found that the partnership is more complex than the human hunters simply following the birds to the hives. The team’s results, published last week (July 22) in Science, suggest that Yao hunters vocally communicate with the birds in order to recruit them into the quest for honey.
The key to the mutually beneficial relationship—humans extract honey and leave exposed beeswax for the birds to eat—is a “brrrr-hm” sound that Yao hunters make when they’re on the hunt for honey. “They told us that the reason they make this ‘brrrr-hm’ sound, when they’re walking through the bush looking for bees’ nests, is that it’s the best way of attracting a honeyguide—and of maintaining a honeyguide’s attention once it starts guiding you,” study coauthor Claire Spottiswoode of Cambridge told BBC News. “In particular, we wanted to distinguish whether honeyguides responded to the specific information content of the ‘brrr-hm’ call—which, from a honeyguide’s point of view, effectively signals ‘I’m looking for bees’ nests’—or whether the call simply alerts honeyguides to the presence of humans in ...
