Birds of a Feather Learn Together

“Researchers have found that superb fairy-wrens can learn to associate unfamiliar sounds with danger through social learning. The birds were played a computer-generated “buzz” as part of a chorus of alarm calls from other bird species. By the end of the training period, 80% of the birds flew away and hid if they heard the computer buzz on its own. The study is the first to show the specific mechanism of social learning through acoustic-acoustic association.“

Current Biology DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.06.013