The sexy tap-dance of the blue bird

Bluebirds are the only species of tap-dance to attract mates, both in males and females.

Blue-eyed tap-dance birds attract mates

According to National Geographic, in many birds, a male can pair with many females, but females only pair with one male. Therefore, males often express themselves to attract attention to females.

However, in bluefin (a species belonging to the genus) , both males and females perform acts of attracting their partners, by sucking a piece of material used in nesting, jumping up and down and singing. .

Not only do they sing, they also dance tap-dance , a leg dance with a complex rhythm. This study is published on Scientific Reports on November 19.

To better understand this behavior of bluefin, scientists have conducted an experiment at the Max Planck Bird Research Institute by Professor Manfred Gahr (Germany).

The blue bird's dance is very fast.(Snapshot from video).

They locked a male bird and any two female birds into the cage with a regular camera and a high-speed camera. With high-speed cameras, scientists discovered that during the time we blinked once, the blue-eyed bird could jump about three times.

"We can't see this because it happens so fast," said Masayo Soma of Hokkaido University (Japan). According to Ms. Soma, tap-dance is a way for a bird to express itself because if it can dance continuously for a few minutes, it proves good health.

"Scientists have done a lot of research on the song of the blue-eyed bird. Now they begin to study the visual impact of the dance to the partner's partner, " said Anastasia Dalziell, postdoctoral researcher. said at the Cornell Bird Laboratory (USA).