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Bird Feeders Might Be Changing Bird Beaks (axios.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Bird beaks might be evolving to better fit bird feeders. A study of great tits in the UK, where feeders are common, found the bird's beaks have grown over the last 26 years, that British birds had longer beaks than those in the Netherlands, and that birds with genes for longer beaks were more likely to visit feeders, per Science News. Scientists have known that environmental changes, like El Nino, can influence the evolution of animals. Now, it appears something as simple as bird feeders can do the same. The scientists looked at the beaks of 2,322 great tits from the UK and the Netherlands, and also examined their genes. They tagged birds with gene variants for short and long beaks and tracked their feeding habits. What they found: The British birds had longer beaks and were more likely to have genes associated with beak length.
This is exactly how evolution is expected to work and originally documented by Darwin' study of Galapagos Finches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
I have one of those combination bird feeder/cat feeder things. It looks like an ordinary bird feeder, but it hangs just a couple of inches off the ground. The cats love it!
I can imagine that conversation....
"So, you're a field researcher? What do you study?"
"Great tits!"
"Ah, you're an ornithologist?"
"No, I study birds in the UK..."
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I've not heard of that bird species before. No worries. Google to the rescue!
Let's see here...
images.google.com
Search for... "Great tit" ...
Well, guess I should have seen that one coming.
It seems we have a propensity, as a species, to name bird species after cleavage.
In the Galapagos you have several species of Boobies.
Meanwhile, in the UK, you actually have a bird called "great tits"... This is rather creepy to be honest.
"tit" (slang) dates from the 1920s, though "titty" comes from the 1700s. But the use of the word "tit" to mean "anything small" comes from the 1500s or earlier. So tits were just small birds, and tits didn't become boobs until recently-ish.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
... tits were just small birds ...
Huh, the titmouse is actually a bird.
Yeah, and they're quite perky. We have them living around here in Kelseyville, CA. They are extremely adorable little peckers. They have almost as much personality as the hummingbirds, though they're not as bold (what is?)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"