{"id":32454,"date":"2021-03-21T13:19:54","date_gmt":"2021-03-21T18:19:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/?p=32454"},"modified":"2021-03-21T13:19:54","modified_gmt":"2021-03-21T18:19:54","slug":"endless-inscrutable-invention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/03\/21\/endless-inscrutable-invention\/","title":{"rendered":"Endless, Inscrutable Invention"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Superb lyrebirds<\/em> are some of the most accomplished mimics in the animal kingdom. In particular, they can imitate the sounds of a <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mobbing_(animal_behavior)\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>mobbing flock<\/em><\/a>, a heterogenuous collection of birds responding to a predator by flying at it. This occurs at least during courtship and copulation; perhaps it also occurs at other times.<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[Anastasia Dalziell of Cornell University] thinks the males aimed to scare the females into staying and mating. While male birds are known for using songs to attract a mate, this suggests male lyrebirds can also use them to deceive.<em> [&#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2269303-male-lyrebirds-imitate-a-flock-of-birds-to-scare-females-into-mating\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Male lyrebirds imitate a flock of birds to scare females into mating<\/a>,&#8221; Priti Parikh, <\/em><strong>NewScientist<\/strong><em> (<\/em><em>6 March 2021)]<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/cms\/10.1016\/j.cub.2021.02.003\/attachment\/d2cf39e9-8dea-48b4-af8a-d4af653693d6\/mmc4.mp4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here is a video of the observations<\/a>. Note that the sounds of wing beats are actually also generated by these birds.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cell.com\/current-biology\/fulltext\/S0960-9822(21)00210-4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Here is the paper<\/a> in <em><strong>Current Biology<\/strong><\/em>. by Dalziell, Maisey, Magrath, and Welbergen.<\/p>\n<p>And I must say, the <em>invaders from space<\/em> movie makers missed a bet when they didn&#8217;t feature male lyrebirds as the invading critters. Eeeek!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Superb lyrebirds are some of the most accomplished mimics in the animal kingdom. In particular, they can imitate the sounds of a mobbing flock, a heterogenuous collection of birds responding to a predator by flying at it. This occurs at least during courtship and copulation; perhaps it also occurs at \u2026 <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/2021\/03\/21\/endless-inscrutable-invention\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32456,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32454\/revisions\/32456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/huewhite.com\/umb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}