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https://www.discoverwildlife.com/animal-facts/birds/great-bowerbird-urban-courtship>
"What do an Australian banknote, a fluorescent mouth guard and a pair of
handcuffs have in common? No, it’s not some Australian Rules football-related
bank heist. The answer is they are all items used by city-dwelling Australian
bowerbirds to impress the local females.
Male great bowerbirds create intricate tear-shaped tunnels of twigs called
bowers, which can be up to a metre long and half a metre tall. At one end,
males place a collection of locally sourced, colourful items, which they then
display to visiting females.
Research in
Royal Society Open Science shows that males living in urban areas
use a wide range of items which they scavenge from humans.
“Glass, plastic and wire were common choices, but we also found items including
a pair of handcuffs, medicine jars at bowers near a hospital, and fluorescent
mouth guards from a site near an Australian Rules football ground,” says
Caitlin Evans from the University of Exeter, who studied the birds."
Via Susan ****
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
