With all the technological advancements made by humans, it may seem that we have lost our connection to nature – but not everyone. In some parts of Africa, people use a more effective guide than any GPS system when it comes to finding beehives and honey. It’s not a device, but a bird.
The Greater Honeyguide – The Honey GPS
The greater honeyguide (a very fitting name), scientifically known as Indicator indicator (a more suitable scientific name), knows where all the beehives are because it eats beeswax. The Hadza people in Tanzania and the Yao people in Mozambique have known this for a long time. Honey hunters from the Hadza and Yao have formed a unique relationship with this bird species by issuing distinct calls, and the greater honeyguide responds with its own calls, leading them to the beehive.
The Greater Honeyguide’s Response to Human Calls
Given the different calls of the Hadza and Yao, animal scientist Claire Spottiswoode from Cambridge University and anthropologist Brian Wood from the University of California, Los Angeles wanted to find out if the birds respond generally to human calls or are specifically related to local humans. They found that the birds were more responsive to local calls, indicating that they had learned to recognize this call.
Cultural Influence on Greater Honeyguide Calls
There is a good reason for honey hunters in the Hadza and Yao tribes to say that they have not changed their calls and will never change them. If they did, they would be unlikely to gather honey in substantial amounts.
How did this interspecies communication evolve? Why do the call types differ? Researchers do not believe that these calls originated randomly.
The Hadza and Yao each have their unique languages, and sounds from them have been incorporated into their calls. But there is more to it. The Hadza often hunt animals when searching for honey. Therefore, the Hadza do not want their calls to be recognized as human, otherwise, the prey being chased might feel threatened and flee. This may explain why they use whistles to communicate with the greater honeyguide – by sounding like birds, they can attract the greater honeyguide and hunt prey without being detected.
In contrast, the Yao do not hunt mammals and primarily rely on agriculture and fishing for food. This, along with the fact that they seek to avoid dangerous creatures such as lions, hyenas, and elephants, could explain why they use known human calls to summon the greater honeyguide. These human sounds may scare off these animals, allowing Yao honey hunters to safely seek out honey with their honeyguide partners. These findings show that cultural diversity has a significant impact on the greater honeyguide’s calls.
Although animals may not literally speak our language, the greater honeyguide is just one of many species that has its own way of communicating with us. They can even learn our cultural traditions.
“Cultural traditions of consistent behavior are widespread in non-human animals and can reasonably lead to other forms of cooperation between species,” said the researchers in the same study.
The greater honeyguide starts guiding humans as soon as it begins to fly, and this talent, alongside learning to respond to traditional calls and cooperate with honey hunters, works well for both the human and the bird. Perhaps they are (in a way) speaking our language.
Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/12/this-bird-is-like-a-gps-for-honey/
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