The Bird That Makes Others Do Their Dirty Work (13 pics)

A story about a large honeyguide that has been going over the heads since childhood and manipulating other living beings.





Who in the world is the smartest, most dangerous and boldest of all? That's right, big honeyguides! From childhood they learn to walk on the heads and manipulate other creatures: first birds arrange a dark one for their brothers and sisters, and then switch to people! How did these birds manage to enslave entire tribes of bipeds?



I want it, but it hurts! More precisely, sorry!

Large honey guide, honey guide, indicator - small a nondescript bird the size of an ordinary lark. long feathered no more than 20 centimeters, weight - up to 50 grams. Outfit simple - in gray-brown tones. So right away and you can’t say that you have a great manipulator in front of you!





Birds know what they want and know how to get it. Their first whim is sweet food. Feathers give honey bee larvae and wax. Lip no fool! Indicators are one of the few animals capable of digesting such a heavy and inedible product like beeswax. They do it thanks to a whole colony of bacteria and symbiont yeasts in the stomach, which break down wax into simple fatty acid molecules.



Only here's the catch: the honey experts themselves not adapted to get their favorite delicacy! They dont have no armored skin, no long beak, no particularly dense plumage. It is worth it for them to personally poke their nose into the bee hive - insects will quickly beat off all appetite. Yes, as alternatively, birds can catch termites or peck at fruit. But with the nutritious products of the forest apiary, this won't compare.



To not wait for someone to find and gut bee hive, some indicator populations have developed a unique strategy for getting tasty treats. They figured out what to hunt on harmful insects is much better and safer by proxy. Therefore, food is supplied to them ... people!



How long ago the birds began to spud a person is a mystery. Scientists suggest that mutually beneficial cooperation began when when we tame the fire. Since then, people have learned fumigate the bees with smoke. In addition, after human raids there is a lot of useful stuff left on the hive. Sapiens take away only honey, and everything else: honeycombs, larvae, wax - remains to the joy of the birds. Over time, honeyguides trained local tribes of people that they themselves began to ask help for birds. The bipeds quickly realized that the little birds help find the treasured hive, and began to leave their feathered thanks to assistants in the form of pieces of honeycombs.



You ask to see where the honey is, but you do it without respect

This is what happens to this day: in African hunting skills passed down from generation to generation on the advice of birds. Scientists have calculated that with the help of indicators bee detection speed increases by 560%! And also honeys lead people to the richest and largest hives - they fly around their territory all day and know the best places. So the local peoples learned to make special whistles and independently publish "call signs". It's a series of short sounds to which the birds react. The man is yelling something and helper birds fly in - now it’s clear where Disney is from got your idea!



Also in the scientific community there is a version that cunning birds have learned to manipulate not only people. They say they even the Honey Badger himself is tricked into working for him! However, this version has a lot of white spots. First, none of the scientists I have not personally seen such a symbiosis, I have not documented it and there are no photographs.



There are only pictures based on assumptions

Secondly, even though the ranges of honey and honey badgers intersect, animals and birds lead different lifestyles. feathered active during the day, and animals - at night. The chances that at different circadian rhythms, animals could agree and develop jointlyyu hunting strategy, very low. But locals assure scientists that both species cooperate with each other. Researchers have conducted more than 400 interview. 80% of respondents claimed that honey and honey badger are brothers on century.



Honey badger eats honey. Everything is in its place

However, I hasten to disappoint everyone who has already begun to build business plans for this birdie: honeyguides live exclusively in tropical Africa, south of the Sahara desert. So, gentlemen seekers, you will either have to start your own bees, or deal with the bears!



But not honey alone. Second whim medovedov - reproduction. Even here they throw off all liability: birds are nest parasites at least 12 kinds of birds! And they work much more sophisticated than our cuckoos. It all starts in the fall. The male lures the female in every possible way: shouting, clapping wings and flies around. If the courtship is accepted, the couple commits mischief. While the male distracts, the female throws into someone else's nest one egg. In the process, a sly milf pierces many times eggs of the host bird to destroy the embryos.



The force of the chick's bite is so powerful that it can easily bite into a person's finger and hang on it.

In 72% of cases, the female host notices the catch and throws all the damaged masonry. But if everything goes smoothly after 2-3 weeks, a small monster will hatch from the egg. He is ready to kill: on the beak of baby honey bears there are two sharp hooks for their stepbrothers and sisters, whom not sentenced him "mother cuckoo".



Only fledgling honeybees do not look as stern as adults

The honeybee cannot inflict serious damage, but exhausting with constant bites is easy. In full in the dark of the nest, the indicator chick attacks others many, many times chicks until they die. So the adoptive remains alone, and all parental care goes only to him. That's how feathered from childhood, they are tempered and learn to achieve their goals.