These birds have been singing the same songs for literally a million years

[Judi Lynn]

By Yasemin Saplakoglu published about 12 hours ago

A million years ago, the soundtrack of the "sky island" mountains of East Africa may have been very similar to what it is today.



A double-collared sunbird is a tiny, colorful bird that resembles a hummingbird. (Image credit: JayHendry/Getty Images)

A million years ago, the soundtrack of the "sky island" mountains of East Africa may have been very similar to what it is today. That's because a group of tiny, colorful birds has been singing the exact same tunes for more than 500,000 years — and maybe as long as 1 million years, according to a new study.

Sunbirds in the family Nectariniidae are colorful, tiny, nectar-feeding birds that resemble hummingbirds and are common throughout Africa and Asia. They are the "little jewels that appear before you," senior author Rauri Bowie, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, and a curator in the school's Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, said in a statement.

The eastern double-collared sunbird (Cinnyris mediocris), also known as the "sky island sunbird," lives at the peaks of tall mountains in East Africa from Mozambique to Kenya. These skyscraping peaks have isolated different populations, or lineages, of this species from one another for tens of thousands to a million years. But despite not interacting at all, many populations of sky island sunbirds are indistinguishable from each other.

Bowie and his team wondered if the birds' songs had also remained unchanged through the eons. To answer this question, the researchers visited 15 separate sky islands in East Africa between 2007 and 2011, and recorded the songs from 123 individual birds from six different sunbird lineages. They then developed a statistical technique to analyze how the sunbirds' songs evolved.

More:
https://www.livescience.com/same-bird-tunes-thousands-million-years-ago

[JohnnyRingo]

1. So has Lynyrd Skynyd.

I could go the rest of my life without hearing that Free Bird again. Sorry, couldn't stop myself.

Kidding aside, considering how species evolve, it's probably amazing these birds haven't changed in that way. Interesting article. Thanx for posting!

[Gore1FL]

2. I was looking for a joke to make, and before it could formulate it, I saw you already nailed it!

[Uncle Joe]

3. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread Judi Lynn.

[Igel]

4. So, something akin to comparative reconstruction.

Mildly interesting.

With the same caveats.