Published in Nature Communications · View the paper (DOI)
A new study finds that swamp sparrows create time-honored song traditions by faithfully copying the most popular songs, with some lasting hundreds of years. The birds' cultural conformity generates extremely stable traditions in their bird song, rivaling those of humans.
Coverage from 2 institutions
- Birds have time-honored traditions, too Duke University · Jun 20, 2018 · first to report
- American swamp sparrows have sung the same songs for more than 1,000 years Queen Mary University of London · Jun 20, 2018