Believe it or not, also called honeyguides, these birds communicate with humans. They guide humans, and possibly other large mammals (such as the Honey Badger) to bee colonies. Once the mammal opens the hive and takes the honey, the bird feeds on the remaining wax and larvae. This clip is from a BBC series called Trials of Life and the episode is called Talking to Strangers - Bird helps man, man cheats bird news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/09/slideshow-bird-helps-man-man-cheats-bird The Latin name Indicator indicator suits the greater honeyguide well. For perhaps millions of years, this bird has led humans to beehives tucked away in trees on the African savanna. To start the search, a person whistles to attract a honeyguide, which flies in the direction of a hive, chattering along the way to keep the human on track. Once the team reaches the hive, the human breaks it open, scoops out the honey, and leaves the honeycombs behind, supposedly rewarding the honeyguide for its help. But the partnership may not be as mutually beneficial as it seems. In Tanzania, researchers followed individuals from the Hadza, one of the world’s few remaining hunter-gatherer groups, on 40 bee-hunting trips. With the honeyguides’ help, the Hadza found hives about 58% of the time, more than twice as often as when foraging alone, researchers report in a paper in press at Evolution and Human Behavior. But the humans didn’t reward the birds for their help; in seven observations, they even went so far as to burn or bury the honeycomb, telling the researchers that they wanted to keep the birds hungry so the avian helpers would guide them to more hives. The researchers call this action a sign of social intelligence on the part of the humans. I call it cheating. So why do honeyguides keep helping humans? The scientists suggest there must still be enough fragments of comb left behind to make it worth the honeyguide’s while to keep up its end of the partnership. Check out the slideshow above for a step-by-step look at the honey-hunting process. Reference Mutualism and manipulation in Hadza–honeyguide interactions Evolution and Human Behavior 25 July 2014, DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.07.007 sciencedirect/science/article/pii/S1090513814000877 Abstract We investigated the ecology and evolution of interspecific cooperation between the Greater Honeyguide bird, Indicator indicator, and human hunter-gatherers, the Hadza of northern Tanzania. We found that honeyguides increased the Hadzas rate of finding bee nests by 560%, and that the birds led men to significantly higher yielding nests than those found without honeyguides. We estimate that 8–10% of the Hadzas total diet was acquired with the help of honeyguides. Contrary to most depictions of the human-honeyguide relationship, the Hadza did not actively repay honeyguides, but instead, hid, buried, and burned honeycomb, with the intent of keeping the bird hungry and thus more likely to guide again. Such manipulative behavior attests to the importance of social intelligence in hunter-gatherer foraging strategies. We present an evolutionary model for human-honeyguide interactions guided by the behavioral ecology of bees, non-human primates, and hunter-gatherers.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Sep 2014 20:32:50 +0000
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