DailyDirt: For The Birds

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Birds have long been a source of fascination for humankind, and remain one of the few classes of animals with an entire hobby community dedicated to simply watching them. Of course, there are a hell of a lot of types of birds, and most come with complex and intriguing behaviours and characteristics that are unique to them, and which we keep discovering whenever we watch a little longer. Here are just a few examples.

• It turns out parrots name their children, and those names stick for life. Parrots aren't the first animals discovered to use names, but their unique ability to mimic human speech seems to make everything they do doubly interesting. [url]
• Lots of birds choose long-term mates — but lots of them get divorced, too. The albatross is the most faithful, while flamingo couples break up 99% of the time. [url]
• Researchers have sequenced the golden eagle's genome, and made new discoveries about how it sees and smells. The mapping will aid conservation efforts, both by helping develop strategies to reduce deaths from things like wind turbines and by providing genetic marker data for tracking populations. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: animal cognition, biology, birds, brains, intelligence, parrot, smart animals, tool