Browsing Tag 'Territoriality'
Birds are not the only animals that communicate by singing—gibbons, apes more closely resembling monkeys in size, sing to strengthen social relationships, announce their territory and find a mate. Crested gibbons in the genus Nomascus live in the Asian rain forests of China, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam and sing for a specific purpose. “The songs [...]
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Convergent evolution of large functional traits is not uncommon in nature; consider that wings have evolved in several lineages of animals to broaden niches that animals can fill. But more specific convergence, especially in sexual and territorial signals, is rare at best and stirs controversy in the scientific world. On the surface, it would seem [...]
Read more...Bird songs are among the most complex and fascinating forms of animal communication. Tiny differences in bird songs can often result in “dialects”, where populations of the same species have slightly different variations on the same songs. In a study out today in Naturwissenschaften, ornithologists have taken it a step further. Some skylarks can not [...]
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