Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

City Slicker Birds Shun Their Country Cousins

Posted by samzenpus on from the red-bird-vs.-blue-bird dept.

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."

16 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Better Idea by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.
    1. Re:Better Idea by Rei · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I prefer to round-trip them until they stabilize ;) Greek has fun with capitalization. Japanese goes off on a tangent about milk. Korean has a funny second cycle. The hebrew translation gets really excited.

      --
      Shiny New Australia.
  2. City tits are perkier than country tits by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:City tits are perkier than country tits by clang_jangle · · Score: 4, Informative

      No way -- even though I'm in my 40s now, guys tell me I have great tits all the time -- and I'm a country girl! My country tits are *quite* perky.

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    2. Re:City tits are perkier than country tits by ciaohound · · Score: 5, Funny

      *quite* perky

      Your slashdot name suggests otherwise.

      --
      Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
    3. Re:City tits are perkier than country tits by Leafheart · · Score: 5, Funny

      No way -- even though I'm in my 40s now, guys tell me I have great tits all the time -- and I'm a country girl! My country tits are *quite* perky.

      Pics or it didn't happen

      --
      --- "When you gotta do something wrong. You gotta do it right. (Fighter)"
  3. Slight problem... by delta419 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...no one on here knows anything about Great Tits.

    1. Re:Slight problem... by xs650 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Wrong. I've seen pictures of them

    2. Re:Slight problem... by Red+Flayer · · Score: 5, Funny

      Have you ever SEEN CowboyNeal?

      I think we may be confused over what he meant by 'great'.

      I think he meant great as in 'awesome', not great as in 'fucking huge'.

      But I could be wrong.

      --
      "Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
  4. The study isn't sufficient. by jd · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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)
    1. Re:The study isn't sufficient. by DeadPixels · · Score: 5, Funny

      Well, this study just went tits-up.

    2. Re:The study isn't sufficient. by Chris+Burke · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      As your knowledge of bird behavior stands, yes, it could mean just about anything. When you know nothing else but that correlation exists, then this in fact does not indicate causation. However when someone possess knowledge of other factors that suggest causation, then correlation can in fact support the causation conclusion.

      In this case, a "dispute between avian clans" can easily be ruled out. You see, when a breeding male tit hears the call of another male tit nearby, that male will sing its own song to proclaim its territory, or investigate the source of the call in order to drive the intruder out. If the male country tit recognized the call of the male city tit, but didn't like city tits, then it would have responded more aggressively in trying to drive out the intruder. The lack of a response means that the country tit did not consider the city tit to be a threat, making the most likely explanation that the country tit didn't recognize the city tit's song as being that of a Great Tit at all.

      There is as they say more research to be done. The next step is to see how females from each group respond to the calls of the other group. This is going to be trickier. While a male will react to any male that enters its territory and thus threatens its chances to mate, a female may or may not respond to the call of a male for any number of reasons. However if city tit females routinely reject the calls of country tit males and vice versa, then the question of whether the female recognizes the male call but just doesn't like it vs doesn't see them as the same species becomes largely moot. If the females aren't attracted to the other males, they won't breed, and they will slowly begin to separate as species.

      On the other hand, if females don't appear significantly less attracted to the other males, then well I'm not really sure what would happen since I'm not terribly well versed in Great Tit behavior. It might mean more females breeding with multiple males on the edge of cities since the city/country males wouldn't compete with each other. It might mean that a bird born from mixed parentage would learn both songs, possibly eliminating the difference.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  5. Is that really a surprise? by Rei · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
  6. So going to get modded down, but I have to. by hbean · · Score: 5, Funny

    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."
  7. Oh come on! by hellfire · · Score: 4, Funny

    (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"

  8. Tits and low brow humor by yerktoader · · Score: 4, Funny

    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...