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Birds understand warning calls from other species [1]

['Gail Sherman']

Date: 2025-10-30  

Scientists have discovered that birds heed warnings from other species, even those from different continents.

Cuckoos are among the almost one hundred species of birds that are brood parasites. They replace the eggs of other birds with their own, leaving the unsuspecting host parents to raise the baby cuckoos. A new study in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution shows that hosts' warning calls in the presence of brood parasites are understood across species.

The study found "21 bird species separated by approximately 53 million years of evolution produce structurally similar 'whining' vocalizations towards their respective brood parasites." Birds across three continents and birds that do not make their own warning calls responded to brood parasite warnings from other birds.

"The birds adapting these innate calls to another purpose could be the first stepping stone towards language," as Charles Darwin theorized in The Descent of Man, one of the authors told New Scientist.

Previously:

• Birds with Arms

• Bird Scooter tried to censor my Boing Boing post with a legal threat that's so stupid, it's a whole new kind of wrong

• Watching birds up close and personal

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