Animal Behavior Ecol 487/587 Fall 2007

YOU ASKED FOR IT: There was a question about a molecular phylogeny for the bowerbirds. That info and more info about evolution of bowers is found HERE

SAD NEWS: One of the most famous animals in the annals of behavioral research, Alex the African grey parrot, has died at the age of 31. Research on Alex by Irene Pepperberg (formerly of The University of Arizona, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology) has provided many important insights into animal cognition, providing evidence for category formation, concept formation, and sense of number in birds. Such abilities were thought to be relegated mainly to humans and just a few other animal species such as chimps and dolphins. A discussion of research on Alex from the journal Nature is found HERE.

DIGGING DEEPER: During our ontogeny of behavior lecture, someone asked what would happen to white crowned sparrow song if a male were deafened after passing through the sensory phase. In a Journal of Neuroscience review by Brenowitz et al. (1997), it is stated that “As first shown by Konishi (1965a,b), if juvenile birds are deafened after the memorization phase but before song crystallization, they will not develop normal song.” It is later stated that “…once a [white-crowned sparrow male] had developed crystallized song, deafening had little or no effect on the production of stable song for periods of at least 2–3 years.”

MORE ON ROVERS AND SITTERS: In the latest issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, there is an article on a genetic polymorphism in learning and memory in rovers and sitters, and the associated commentary by yours truly Papaj and Snell-Rood.