AR-News: (Africa) Birds sing to celebrate victory

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

Tropical birds sing a special victory song when they have successfully seen 
off intruders from their turf, new German research suggests.

Dr T Ulmar Grafe of the University of Würzburg and Johannes Bitz of the 
German Primate Center in Göttingen report how birds from the forests of west Africa 
sing a victory duet. 

They published their findings in the 28 January issue of the journal BMC 
Ecology.

Grafe and Bitz ventured into a national park in the Ivory Coast to find out 
how the tropical boubou responded to other boubous intruding their territory. 
Tropical boubous are monogamous and the male and female often sing duets.

The researchers chose 18 different pairs of birds and played recordings of 
four songs often sung in contests over territory to simulate invaders of the 
boubou territory.

They found that most of the pairs remained nearby and continued to duet while 
the sounds were broadcast. The rest seemed to stop singing and retreat. The 
researchers then stopped the recorder, simulating the departure of invading 
birds.





full story:

http://abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s1043844.htm 

"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein
      /\   /\         
>' .' <   
                              
There is no justice, just us!  








    
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