Related topics: birds

Social connection drives learning in bird brain

Juvenile zebra finches learn songs directly from a tutor—usually their father—through a social interaction that keeps them motivated and on-task. Young birds who simply hear the songs through a speaker, without the tutor's ...

Darwin's giant daisies help researchers understand evolution

Naturalists Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin both presented the theory of evolution at the same time in 1858. They thus changed both the course of biology and how we understand the natural world around us.

Green eggs and scam: Cuckoo finch's long con may be up

For two million years African cuckoo finches have been tricking other birds into raising their young by mimicking the colour of their eggs, but new research suggests the tables may be turning in this evolutionary scam.

Zebra finch males sing in dialects and females pay attention

Male zebra finches learn their song by imitating conspecifics. To stand out in the crowd, each male develops its own unique song. Because of this individual-specific song, it was long assumed that dialects do not exist in ...

Dopamine plays key role in songbird mating

In humans, the dopamine system has been tied to rewards and pleasurable sensations. As well as to memory and learning. A recent study from McGill University, published in Current Biology, suggests that dopamine may also play ...

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