精东传媒

Life

Birds can learn to understand the meanings of other species' calls

By Yvaine Ye

13 September 2018

fairy-wren

Ready for some social learning

Jessica McLachlan

When a bird tweets an alarm call it鈥檚 not necessarily just its family members who get the message. Some birds respond to an alarm even if it comes from a member of a different bird species 鈥 and now we have a better idea of how they learn to do so.

Robert Magrath at the Australian National University in聽Canberra and his colleagues played a computer-generated 鈥渂uzz鈥 to eight superb fairy-wrens in a nearby botanic gardens. None of the birds flew away and sought cover after hearing the sound.

Next, over the course…

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