These Beautiful Birds Form Something Like Lasting Friendships

The true friends, most people would agree, are there for each other. Sometimes that means offering emotional support. Sometimes it means helping each other to move. And if you are an excellent sterling, an extravagant singer and clarple bird of the African savannah, it means filling insects through the throat of the offspring of your friends, surely with the expectation that Opel do the same for yours.

Scientists have long known that social animals generally put blood relatives first. But for a study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, the researchers creaked two decades of field data to show that unrelated members of an excellent Starling flock often help each other to raise chicks, trading with the assistance with each other.

“We believe that reciprocal thesis aid relationships are a way of building ties,” said Dustin Rubenstein, a professor of ecology at Columbia University and author of the article.

Excellent starlings are distinctive among animals that reproduce cooperatively, said Alexis Earl, a biologist at the University of Cornell and author of the newspaper. Their flocks mix family groups with immigrants from other groups. The new parents trust up to 16 assistants, who bring additional food to the chicks and help escape the predators.

Dr. Rubenstein’s laboratory has maintained a 20 -year field study of the species that included 40 reproduction seasons. He has registered thousands of interactions between hundreds of chatted birds and the DNA collected to examine their genetic relationships. When Dr. Earl, then a postgraduate student in the laboratory, blessed the data, she and her colleagues were not surprised to see that the birds greatly helped family members, the way in which an aunt or uncle can go to take care of the parents and give parents a break.

But to their surprise, they discovered that Starlings also helped unrelated, even when they could have helped the family. The new birds in the flock helped those born inside him, and vice versa. And due to the excellent change sneakers between the reproduction and help roles, the team discovered that the individual birds that helped those not related to a reproduction season later had their good actions reimbursed, sometimes repeatedly.

“The starlings are consistently investing in the same preferred social couples during their lives,” said Dr. Earl. “For me, that sounds like friendship.”

The idea that animals could establish friends with people with unrelated individuals has caused controversy among scientists, said Gerald Carter, an animal behavior from Princeton University and author in the newspaper. However, a growing body of research has led scientists to accept that there are long -term reciprocal relationships between primates, elephants, crows and whales. There are also vampire bats that share blood meals with members of the non -related Hungry Colony, and that unrelated spear tail mannakins serve as “Altamanos” to obtain female attention.

But long -term relations can be difficult for DEC, Dr. Ir. Rubenstein said. The team needed 27 data seasons to collect indications of reciprocity in the starlings. He thinks they are still underestimating him.

These reciprocal help relationships are probable more important than the laboratory data shows, said Dr. Rubenstein. “And so, only with many long -term data, you can get that.”

The study makes a convincing case, said Jorg Massen, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands that did not participate in the newspaper. The next step would be to solve how these long -term relationships are kept day by day.

“Is it based only on reproductive aid, or is it accompanied by other behavior features?” Hey said.

The behavior of excellent starlings also suggests that maintaining thesis of relationships with unrelated fellows benefits all. “Birds living in larger groups tend to live longer, and tend to reproduce more descendants during their lives,” said Dr. Rubenstein. In the hard and unpredictable African savanna, everything is hands on the deck to raise young people. And the addition of immigrant birds is required so that the groups are more resistant.

It has parallels with the evolutionary trajectory of humans: a lineage of sociable and cooperative apes that also breeds in La Sabana, Dr. Ir. Rubenstein said.

And today, as many experts care about an epidemic of human loneliness, there could be value in the lessons of the excellent Starling. In other words, solid relationships are often based on providing help.

But maybe not sacrifice to put the insects in the mouths of their friends. Fortunately, you can always sacrifice for children.