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In reply to the discussion: This is not fiction [View all]

Cirsium

(2,645 posts)
63. Birds
Tue May 20, 2025, 12:32 PM
May 20

Your post reminded me of an interesting article I came across a while back.

Kleindorfer decided to study bird eggs and early development, which were then neglected research topics. "Maybe this was because only females have eggs and I was a woman in science," she told me. "I don't have a better reason." Kleindorfer had noticed that mustached-warbler chicks seemed to respond to the alarm calls of adult warblers, even though the thinking at the time was that such calls were directed at other adults, or possibly at predators. "If I put a snake nearby, the parental alarm call made the chicks in the nest jump," she said. "If I put a marsh harrier"—a hawk like predatory bird—"nearby, the response to the parental alarm call was that the chicks would duck." The chicks were responding appropriately to different alarm calls—a satisfying finding.

Kleindorfer also studied the superb fairy wren, a songbird that weighs about as much as a walnut and sports a flirty, upright tail. Despite their fanciful names, fairy wrens are commonplace in Australia. They are socially monogamous but sexually promiscuous—they are essentially in open marriages—and they bring up their young collectively. Arguably, they have even more to chat about than geese do. Fairy-wren nests are about the size of cupped human hands, built to contain pale, speckled eggs that are smaller than thumbnails. Kleindorfer and her team wired up nests with cameras and microphones and soon discovered something that they hadn't known to look for. "The mothers in nests were producing an incubation call—a call to the eggs," she told me. It was like a lullaby. Why would a mother bird make any sound that could attract predators to the nest? "Songbird embryos don't have well-developed ears, so this was completely unexpected," she said. "That started a twenty-year project—why is she calling to the eggs?"

The team compared incubation calls to the begging calls of young chicks. "It was very odd," Kleindorfer recalled. "Each nest had its own distinct begging call." What's more, each begging call matched an element from the mother's incubation call. This suggested, startlingly, that birds could learn a literal mother tongue while still in ovo. (Humans do this, too; French and German babies have distinct cries.) Even "foster" chicks, who as eggs were physically moved from one nest to another, learned begging calls from their foster mothers, rather than from their genetic mothers. This was big news in the ornithology world. "The paradigm of how songbirds learn—after hatching, from their father's song—was overthrown," she said. The same process was soon documented in more songbird species.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/10/21/how-scientists-started-to-decode-birdsong


Sonia Kleindorfer, is a biologist and bird ecologist and director of the Konrad Lorenz Research Center for Behavior and Cognition.

The article is behind a paywall, but I have the entire text if you are interested.

Recommendations

1 members have recommended this reply (displayed in chronological order):

This is not fiction [View all] angrychair May 19 OP
It is unusual for them to do this get the red out May 19 #1
If you are dead, they make you stay alive. Irish_Dem May 19 #2
That was not an option soldierant May 19 #37
Where are the attorney's arguing for her 13th Amendment right? CrispyQ May 19 #3
This is not a choice issue. soldierant May 19 #38
Irrelevant lonely bird May 20 #57
Yes. And she DID NOT have a FETUS inside her! raging moderate May 20 #58
Brain dead is usually dead. bucolic_frolic May 19 #4
Does a Viking King count as royalty? Delmette2.0 May 19 #7
Or being an Hunyadi? ChazInAz May 19 #46
Yes, and Charlemagne Equity Fund will have a deluge of applications ./nt bucolic_frolic May 20 #59
LOL. Delmette2.0 May 20 #60
Forcing the family to pay the bill sounds unconstitutional....... Lovie777 May 19 #5
So they should be like tsf and pay nothing. rubbersole May 19 #44
I don't think parents have legal obligations for adult children in most cases. Doesn't make sense. Nt lostnfound May 21 #65
And if the family refuses? DFW May 21 #66
It is a horror movie though KT2000 May 19 #6
Not a horror movie.... usedtobedemgurl May 19 #24
Can you Spell G-I-L-E-A-D ?!!! electric_blue68 May 19 #48
Exactly. usedtobedemgurl May 19 #49
Ikr. Ick and yikes! electric_blue68 May 19 #50
I would expect nothing less... GiqueCee May 19 #8
My babies and I bonded while they were in my womb. pandr32 May 19 #9
i have to wonder if this baby will b ok. mopinko May 19 #12
Probably not. Girard442 May 19 #15
Basically the baby is in a machine womb. pandr32 May 19 #17
Worse. MadLinguist May 20 #61
I had same experience. Dixiegrrrl May 19 #42
There's changes in our brain. pandr32 May 20 #56
Birds Cirsium May 20 #63
Interesting. pandr32 May 20 #64
But... But... But... BurnDoubt May 19 #10
Go OT on them and quote Numbers 11: 5-13, the test for an unfaithful wife. multigraincracker May 19 #32
This is America 2025. spanone May 19 #11
Why they hate the ERA. rickyhall May 19 #13
GOP BRAND Iamscrewed May 19 #14
sorry. the bill goes to the fetus humpers, plus child support. pansypoo53219 May 19 #16
It should. pandr32 May 19 #18
G.O.P. Kristo-sadism BoRaGard May 19 #19
We are living through an Age of Dystopia. SleeplessinSoCal May 19 #20
Has the family requested she be taken off of life support? WarGamer May 19 #21
They wanted her off, justaprogressive May 19 #26
Then the desires of the family need to be respected. WarGamer May 19 #35
Every horror is worst than the last one. Joinfortmill May 19 #22
The horror show is that lawyers are telling doctors how to practice medicine. Mosby May 19 #23
Shes only 9 weeks?!! Kali May 19 #25
I believe she was 9 weeks when she had the incident Crunchy Frog May 20 #51
insanity Kali May 20 #54
More Detail & Parallels justaprogressive May 19 #27
Agreed Evolve Dammit May 19 #28
It is, i think, the height of depravity. NNadir May 19 #29
We are drowning in dystopian plot twists of horror. yellow dahlia May 19 #30
The powers that be have taken away her reproductive rights from the beginning and now her dignity to die peacefully Deuxcents May 19 #31
This is not unusual - 20 years ago this year BumRushDaShow May 19 #33
Yep angrychair May 19 #40
Kick SheltieLover May 19 #34
Christian Taliban. nt. Hotler May 19 #36
The fetus may not survive according to docters. This is so fucking cruel. Autumn May 19 #39
I have zero doubts angrychair May 19 #43
Dear Pope Leo. If you get a minute. BidenRocks May 19 #41
The Catholic Church ruled that terminally ill people could in good conscience refuse "extraordinary measures" Hekate May 20 #55
I predict someone will take the hit Figarosmom May 19 #45
The family shouldn't have to pay one penny of the medical debt; area51 May 19 #47
A living woman has fewer rights than a corpse. Shipwack May 20 #52
Are there prayer groups outside the hospital? Has anyone brought a life-size crucifix on a trailer hitch? Hekate May 20 #53
Conservatives are degenerate ghouls. Shades of Karen Ann Quinlan in the 70s during the Ford administration. Martin68 May 20 #62
Her family can sue the hospital and the people doing this.. Meowmee May 21 #67
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