Honeyguide

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Honeyguide
Greater honeyguide and
brown-backed honeybird
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Piciformes
Suborder: Pici
Infraorder: Picides
Family: Indicatoridae
Swainson, 1837
Genera
  • Prodotiscus

Honeyguides (

Prodotiscus. They have an Old World tropical distribution, with the greatest number of species in Africa and two in Asia. These birds are best known for their interaction with humans. Honeyguides are noted and named for one or two species that will deliberately lead humans (but, contrary to popular claims, not honey badgers) directly to bee colonies, so that they can feast on the grubs and beeswax
that are left behind.

Description

rock-loving cisticola

Most honeyguides are dull-colored, though some have bright yellow coloring in the plumage. All have light outer tail feathers, which are white in all the African species. The smallest species by body mass appears to be the

Cassin's honeyguide, at an average of 10 cm (3.9 in), while the largest species by weight is the lyre-tailed honeyguide, at 54.2 g (1.91 oz), and by length, is the greater honeyguide, at 19.5 cm (7.7 in).[1][2][3]

They are among the few birds that feed regularly on

mixed-species feeding flocks
.

Behavior

Guiding

Honeyguides are named for a remarkable habit seen in one or two species: guiding humans to

bee colonies. Once the hive is open and the honey is taken, the bird feeds on larvae and wax. This behavior has been studied in the greater honeyguide; some authorities (following Friedmann, 1955) state that it also occurs in the scaly-throated honeyguide, while others disagree.[1] Wild honeyguides understand various types of human calls that attract them to engage in the foraging mutualism.[4] In northern Tanzania, honeyguides partner with Hadza hunter-gatherers, and the bird assistance has been shown to increase honey-hunters' rates of finding bee colonies by 560%, and led men to significantly higher yielding nests than those found without honeyguides.[5] Contrary to most depictions of the human-honeyguide relationship, the Hadza did not actively repay honeyguides, but instead, hid, buried, and burned honeycomb, with the intent of keeping the bird hungry and thus more likely to guide again.[5] Some experts believe that honeyguide co-evolution with humans goes back to the stone-tool making human ancestor Homo erectus, about 1.9 million years ago.[6][5] Despite popular belief, no evidence indicates that honeyguides guide the honey badger; though videos about this exist, there have been accusations that they were staged.[7][8]

Although most members of the family are not known to recruit "followers" in their quest for wax, they are also referred to as "honeyguides" by linguistic extrapolation.

Breeding

The breeding behavior of eight species in Indicator and Prodotiscus is known. They are all

cup-nesters such as white-eyes and warblers. Honeyguide nestlings have been known to physically eject their hosts' chicks from the nests and they have needle-sharp hooks on their beaks with which they puncture the hosts' eggs or kill the nestlings.[9]

African honeyguide birds are known to lay their eggs in underground nests of other bee-eating bird species. The honeyguide chicks kill the hatchlings of the host using their needle-sharp beaks just after hatching, much as cuckoo hatchlings do. The honeyguide mother ensures her chick hatches first by internally incubating the egg for an extra day before laying it, so that it has a head start in development compared to the hosts' offspring.[10]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Short, L.L. and J. F. M. Horne (2020). Greater Honeyguide (Indicator indicator), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.
  2. ^ Short, L.L., J. F. M. Horne, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Cassin's Honeyguide (Prodotiscus insignis), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA.
  3. ISBN 978-1-4200-6444-5
    .
  4. S2CID 206648494
    .
  5. ^
    ISSN 1090-5138
    .
  6. ^ Wrangham, Richard (2011). Honey and fire in human evolution. Oxbow Books. pp. 149–167.
  7. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.1990.tb00272.x
    .
  8. ^ Yong, Ed (September 19, 2011). "Lies, damned lies, and honey badgers". Kalmbach. Retrieved 11 March 2013.
  9. ISBN 978-1-85391-186-6
    .
  10. BBC
    Nature.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Indicatoridae.
Wikispecies has information related to Indicatoridae.
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