Birds 'read' passwords to receive bait

When the pink weasel preyed on the nest, their children had to make a special sound to receive prey from their mother.

In the animal world, mother's cry is a great sound for children. But for the first wrenches (Malurus cyaneus) , the cry also plays another important role, Science Daily said.

If the young fairy's wives want their mother to feed them, they must give out a 'password' . It is the monophonic cry that their mother taught when they were still in the egg. The young birds let out a monophonic sound with other sounds. The mother bird only prey to those that give out the correct password and ignore the others.

Picture 1 of Birds 'read' passwords to receive bait
A fairy pink bird.

So why did the first wren have to teach me how to generate a password to get bait?

Cu, the birds have the habit of laying eggs in the nest of other birds so that they do not have to raise the children, often choosing the fairy's nest to 'send' the eggs. After the cuckoo hatches, they will win all the prey's prey because they are bigger and stronger. Even the cuckoo sought to push the fairy tales out of the nest to monopolize the bait. In order to minimize the risk of raising another's children, the mature fairy must think of a 'password' . The female also teaches the male bird the password so the males recognize their children when they feed on them.

'The male and female will only feed the young birds if they recognize the password in the chirping of the young bird. In the case of young birds that do not generate passwords, they will abandon their children and make new nests, ' said Sonia Kleindorfer, a member of the research team.

Kleindorfer and her colleagues inadvertently discovered the behavior of the fairy wrenching password when studying bird warnings. They saw the wrenching birds singing to the roof of the unopened eggs - an unusual phenomenon. Then they found the young fairy's weasels making the same monologue. But the monophonic cry of a young bird in any group is not the same as the monophonic sound of other groups. This shows that every mother bird teaches her own password right from the time the egg has hatched.

When scientists turn eggs from one nest to another, they see young birds emitting new mother's passwords, not their mother-taught passwords. This is evidence that young birds have to learn passwords.