Who Said Watching TV Wasn’t Educational? Some birds have found looking at the ‘silly box’ quite instructive to know what they should and should not carry ‘to the beak’.
A study carried out by scientists at the University of Cambridge has been able to show that two species of birds have the ability to avoid foods that can be dangerous simply by observing other birds ingesting them in TV images.
The work, which has been published in the Journal of Animal Ecology , has shown how two species in particular, the blue tit ( Cyanistes caeruleus ) and the great tit ( Parus major ) are able to internalize behaviors related to survival when viewing them on a screen. , in the same way in which it would happen if they are eyewitnesses.
Tits would have learned better by observing their own species, while chickadees would have learned both from their species and from tits.
Aside from revealing how they learn through trial and error, the experiment shows how birds have the ability to reduce poisoning risks by mere observation . It also shows that the use of ‘social data’ to avoid bad results is very important in nature. This social transmission of information could help clarify why certain species come together.
“Blue tit and great tit feed together and have a similar diet, although they may differ in their doubts to try novel foods. By observing others, they can quickly and safely learn which prey is the best to eat. This can reduce the time and energy they spend testing different prey and also help them avoid the harmful effects of eating toxic prey, ”says Liisa Hämäläinen, former PhD student in the Department of Zoology at the University of Cambridge and first author of the report.
This is how the experiment was carried out
The researchers put each bird on a television with a video that contained the response of another bird as it ate a disgusting object as ‘prey’ . These on-screen birds made a clear disgusted response, which materialized in a shake of their head and beak. Observing these images allowed blue tit and chickadee to internalize what they should not eat.
The food that was shown in the experiment was composed of small flakes of almonds that were glued in a white paper package and that had been soaked with a bitter-tasting solution. There were only a few harmful packages: the ones that were marked on the outside with a square symbol . Those that were edible and had not been sprinkled with the bitter touch had a cross drawn on them.
The birds that were part of the experiment were presented with the disgusting ‘prey’ to see if they had learned anything after watching other animals react in disgust. And, indeed, it was possible to verify how both blue tit and chickadee ate less of these packages.
“In our previous work, using great tit as a model predator, we found that if one bird sees another being repelled by a new type of prey, they both learn to avoid it in the future. By expanding the research, we now see that different species of birds also have the ability to learn from each other, ”says Dr. Rose Thorogood, who has also led the investigation.
