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City Slicker Birds Shun Their Country Cousins
According to scientists, city Great Tits prefer other city Great Tits over country Great Tits. (Lets act like adults). The researchers found that the city dwellers responded more strongly to songs of fellow city dwellers and the same held true for the bumpkins. The average minimum pitch of male Great Tit songs in noisy urban areas was higher than in quieter, rural areas just a few miles away. Dr Rupert Marshall, of Aberystwyth University, Wales, and his team recorded bird song in 20 different cities in Britain. He says, "People speak louder and higher in noisy places like pubs and bars but still recognise their friends' voices once they go outside. Great tits seem to learn the high notes from their neighbours but don't respond as strongly to lower rural tones even when it's quiet."
According to scientists, city Great Tits prefer other city Great Tits over country Great Tits. (Lets act like adults)
Yeah, we could do that. Or we could plug what you just said into Google translator and translate it from English to Hindi to Estonian back to English again:
According to researchers, large cities and large country breast breast-feeding a baby, like other big cities do. As adults (Act I)
My work here is dung.
Great tits from the city are higher and perkier than tits from the country. The country tits are lower, and the city tits don't give them the time of day.
It's not really any wonder, though. Everyone prefers perky tits.
...no one on here knows anything about Great Tits.
They would need to examine the reaction of different populations from the countryside to see if the reaction is simply one of disputes between avian clans. As it stands, their data could mean too many different things. The adage, often repeated here, is that correlation is not causation.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
They're undergoing divergent evolution. It's not like we haven't seen this before. Pigeons are rock doves that have adapted to urban life instead of their traditional cliff-dwelling habitat.
Shiny New Australia.
This is obviously a prime example of an adaptation creating a new and distinct species. In a few years, the city birds will no longer interbreed with their rural counterparts, and the inbreeding will cause them to mutate and adapt differently. In 100 years the two groups will be in two very distinct species, with one having the upper hand in our modern climate. I'm sure this is already beginning to happen to other species, but its just because of birds shorter gestation period and lifespan that it is appearing first. Just wait, in several hundred more years, humanity will have reshaped all of the species on this planet, for good or ill.
If our elected representatives no longer represent us, do we still live in a Democracy?
Nothing beats waking up in the morning, looking out your window and seeing a pair of great tits.
"Give someone a program, frustrate them for a day... Teach someone to program, frustrate them for a lifetime."
98% of slashdot readers applied for the job of "watching Great Tits" without reading the article (this IS slashdot).
You would think they would be disappointed on their first day of work, but the fact that they were issued binoculars let to great job satisfaction.
http://www.galapagosonline.com/Galapagos_Natural_History/Birds_and_Animals/Birds/Boobies.html
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's interesting how human urbanization affects the behavior of animals, creating new niches and possibly new sub species as in this case. Once at a large parking lot I saw small birds jumping up and eating the insects that got stuck on the cars registration signs and windshields. Apparently, they had specialized in this, cleaning out new cars that got parked. In the future, we will probably have a set of animals that are completly dependant of the urban environment and human activities.
(Lets act like adults)
Really? You want slashdotters to have a mature, serious discussion with no inuendo about "Great Tits?" You have to be out of your mind!
Well if you are so offended by our elementary school breast humor, then all I have to say is tough tits!! Get over it!
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
city Great Tits prefer other city Great Tits over country Great Tits. (Lets act like adults).
Or we could take George Carlin's view on the low brow - if you can't laugh at a fart joke...
I have seen a better Great Tits headline. A while back on the BBC there was this one: "Great tits cope well with warming". It was about how this species of bird is doing well with the warming environment.
Time to offend someone