LONDON: One of the tiniest birds in Australia has evolved a unique way of protecting its nest and young from predators by mimicking warning calls of other species, scientists have discovered.
The small brown thornbill, weighing less than a fifth of an ounce, mimics the specific hawk warning call of a number of bird species to scare off predators such as the large pied currawong by convincing it a much large and fiercer predator — the brown goshawk — is approaching.
“It’s not superbly accurate mimicry, but it’s enough to fool the predator,” says Branislav Igic, who studied the thornbill’s vocal mimicry as part of his doctoral studies at the Australian National University’s Research School of Biology.
Thornbills will use their own hawk alarm calls and mimic the calls of other species to create the impression of an impending hawk attack, distracting currawongs and giving thornbills a chance to protect their young, the researchers report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“Distracting a currawong attacking the nest could give older thornbill nestlings a chance to escape and hide in the surrounding vegetation,” Igic says. “It’s perhaps the thornbills’ best nest defense in this circumstance because physical attacks on the much larger currawong are hopeless.”
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