How can I avoid being harassed by others? For some female hummingbirds, the key is to look like a male hummingbird.
White-necked Jacobin Hummingbird The researchers in a new study all started with male-like feathers. Publish Said in the journal “Contemporary Biology” on Thursday. This means that all young birds have the bright blue feathers of a male bird. However, females will eventually develop softer green and white feathers, while males retain their bright colors.
This in itself is quite unique, because among “most other birds”, young birds tend to adopt female feathers as their young birds “probably not so obvious to predators”, study lead author Jay Falk, former Cornell Ornithology The laboratory is now at the University of Washington, Said In the Cornell Lab of Ornithology press release.
But in the case of white-necked Jacobin hummingbirds, they don’t just start with male feathers. Some women even retain the bright masculine colors. According to the researchers, this feature is also observed in other animals, such as lizards, fish, and butterflies.
In fact, when the researchers captured and released 436 specimens of this species in Gamboa, Panama, they determined that 28.6% of females actually have male-like feathers.
Why do they keep this color? Researchers pointed out that decoration can usually be explained by sexual selection, but there is also “increasing evidence” that non-sexual factors are behind this, especially among women.For female white-necked Jacobin hummingbirds, they develop bright colors In their adolescence, When they have not yet looked for a spouse.
The researchers wrote: “This unique ontogeny precludes competition for mates as an explanation for feminine decoration, because non-reproductive juveniles are more likely to be decorated than adults.”
In order to find the possible benefits of this decoration for females, the researchers set up hummingbird specimens on the feeder during the breeding season and observed how real hummingbirds interact with them, Cell Press famous In the press release.
The Cornell Ornithology Laboratory pointed out that the stuffed specimens are adult males, typical adult females, and adult females that look like males.
Interestingly, the researchers found that hummingbirds with softer colors are more susceptible to harassment than females with male feathers. Because of this, females with male feathers eat about 35% longer than typical females.
“For any vertebrate species with the highest quality and specific metabolic needs, facing fierce competition for resources from any other bird (regardless of gender or species), choosing traits that maximize feeding can explain why women have evolved so frequently to restrict polymorphisms. In hummingbirds, but rare in other birds,” the researchers wrote.
Simply put, “avoid social harassment” seems to be the root cause of decoration. According to the researchers, this suggests that such decoration can occur “purely through non-sexual social choice.”
“Hummingbirds are a favorite animal of many people, but there are still some mysteries that we haven’t noticed or studied,” Falk said. “It’s cool, you don’t have to go to an unremarkable unknown bird to find interesting and enlightening results. You can first look at the bird that everyone likes to watch.”
Photo: Marvin Blanco/Pixabay
