The lyrebird: nature’s finest sound mimic

November 27, 2014 • 11:37 am

The superb lyrebird of Australia (Menura novaehollandiae) is perhaps the best vocal mimic in the world, and by “vocal mimic” I don’t mean having the ability to mimic voices, but having the ability to mimic diverse sounds with its voice.

In one of the first posts that appeared on this site in 2009 (only 4 comments!), I showed a video of a lyrebird apparently mimicking a chainsaw, a camera, and a car alarm.  That video is no longer at the original site, but it’s been put on YouTube again, and is just below. Naturally, it’s from an Attenborough show: the “Life of Birds” series.

Amazing, no?

This video has been cited widely, even by National Geographic, but it may not be all it’s cracked up to be. In an article at The Conversation, Hollis Taylor, a postdoc at the University of Technology in Sydney, first explains the birds’ mimicy in the wild:

. . . lyrebirds have a stunning ability to accurately mimic the sounds of the forests they inhabit. Most of their mimicry is of other avian species: calls, songs, wing beats, and beak claps, which they deliver in quick succession.

The avian sound-producing organ is the syrinx. Instead of the usual four pairs of syringeal muscles of other songbirds, lyrebirds have only three pairs. It is not known if this simplification makes them more adept at mimicry, nor is their motivation to mimic entirely clear. There is no evidence to suggest that lyrebirds attempt to fool other species.

While mimicry forms most of their vocal repertoire, lyrebirds also have their own songs and calls. While the “territorial” song can be melodious, the “invitation-display” call sounds mechanical to human ears. Twanging, clicking, scissors-grinding, thudding, whirring, “blick”-ing, galloping — these noisy or metallic sounds are the lyrebirds’ own and not mimicry. Nevertheless, they are often mistaken for that.

But Taylor adds this:

This Attenborough moment is highly popular — but hold on! He fails to mention that two of his three lyrebirds were captives, one from Healesville Wildlife Sanctuary and the other from Adelaide Zoo. This latter individual, Chook, was famed for his hammers, drills, and saws, sounds he reputedly acquired when the Zoo’s panda enclosure was built. Hand-raised from a chick, he was also known to do a car alarm, as well as a human voice intoning “hello, Chook!” He died in 2011, aged 32.

The fact that lyrebirds in captivity mimic human machines and voices with such fidelity should be a substantial enough achievement to warrant our awe.

Based on this (and what I’ll reproduce below), Taylor concludes that there’s no example of a lyrebird in nature imitating a man-made sound in its territorial defense song. But what about the third lyrebird? Where did it come from? Taylor doesn’t tell us.

She goes on to recount another putative instance of wild birds imitating man-made sounds, but that, too, is apparently due to captivity:

There is only one suggested example of imitation of a man-made sound in a lyrebird’s territorial song — wild or captive — that of the “flute lyrebirds” of the New England Tablelands. This extraordinarily complex song consists of flute-like tone colours.

You can hear five clips of the flute lyrebird at this site; just click the “mp3” links at the bottom of each description. Taylor continues:

How have we humans made sense of this?

A lyrebird chick was raised in captivity in the 1920s. It mimicked the household’s flute player, learning two tunes and an ascending scale. When released back into the wild, his flute-like songs and timbre spread throughout the Tablelands’ lyrebird population — or so the story goes.

I participate in a research group that is mapping the “flute lyrebird” territory and studying the origins of this story. Our recent article was unable to consolidate the conflicting memories and recorded anecdotes of credible witnesses.

Nevertheless, every winter the rugged, misty rainforests of the New England Tablelands resound with flute-like timbres, contrapuntal overlapping scales, and melodic contours (often with a musical competence exceeding what a human flautist could achieve) that are poles apart from the territorial songs of the rest of the species.

Do wild lyrebirds mimic machinery and the like? While I can imagine that in rare circumstances their vocalisations could reflect the human impact on their environment (and there are such anecdotes), there is no known recording of a lyrebird in the wild mimicking man-made mechanical sounds. Nevertheless, belief in such a phenomenon is now so well established on the internet that it even crops up on official sites.

Well, I don’t think the splendor if this phenomenon depends on whether the bird imitates sounds it heard in the wild or in captivity. What’s the difference? The amazing part is that the bird can do it at all! So while Taylor’s article adds a bit to our knowledge of how the lyrebird hears the human sounds, it doesn’t add much to our amazement at the bird’s abilities. What her article does show, however—if she turns out to be right—is that bird songs in a region can change dramatically due not to genetic evolution, but to cultural evolution. (If you’re a “meme” fan, you could say that the flute song was an avian “meme”.) The released “flute-imitataing” bird apparently had such a lovely song that the other birds in the area copied it, and it spread quickly and widely.

At any rate, here’s a newer video, also in the process of going viral, in which a lyrebird supposedly imitates the sounds of a video game (did it ever hear one?).  What do you think?

You can also hear the “video game” song in this clip.

A reader describes the “high” of glossolalia and his journey to nonbelief

November 27, 2014 • 9:22 am

I got an email from a reader who had a few comments about glossolalia (“speaking in tongues”), and then his email turned into a description of his journey from belief to atheism.  Because of the possible negative repercussions of the author coming out publicly, I won’t identify him except to use the word “he”. Anyway, the name is not important.  Feel free to comment or to add messages to the writer.  It also gives us a hint of what happens to a believer who speaks in tongues.

Mr. Coyne:

I’m a fellow atheist, but I came from a religious background, a believer for decades. Pentecostal to be specific. I saw the Jesus ‘n’ Mo cartoon on glossolalia on your site, and I thought I’d fill you in on what peopl who have never had the experience don’t know.

I had the experience when I was 27 years old. For me, it was an overwhelming experience. I wouldn’t liken it to anything like the euphoria of attending a rock concert or just emotional euphoria. In my case, that would be a completely inadequate and misleading description.

For me, it was like my body, from head to toe, was suddenly infused with this ecstatic flowing tangible (I want to say electric, but it was way beyond that) energy that was far and away beyond anything I had ever experienced before in my life. I became physically weak from it…While this was going on, I heard myself rapid fire uttering gibberish.The experience was ecstatic beyond words.

I fell to my knees just from weakness and being overpowered with the experience, and began weeping uncontrollably…I became extremely emotional AFTER the experience; prior to it, I was sort of blank emotionally, just listening to my pastor pray over me. A sort of “afterglow” of the experience stayed with me all day, and I couldn’t wait to get to Church again that evening for another shot..

During the preacher’s sermon, the experience overwhelmed me again and I was flooded again, but somewhere in the back of my mind I remember reading scripture that said during service things are to be conducted “decently and in order”, so I thought I was being disruptive and forced myself to stop.

I had that same afterglow for a few minutes, and then suddenly, without warning, I felt it sucked out of me and I felt completely empty. I was never able to repeat the experience again, no matter how many times I “sought the Lord”.

I’m sharing this with you because I want you to know that that there IS something to the Pentecostal experience. However, instead of becoming a strengthening factor in my own “Christian life”, it became a source of nothing but ongoing torment that lasted for decades. I couldn’t understand why God took this ability away from me, and wouldn’t give it back. What did I do wrong to be punished like that? (The experience is like the most powerful drug you’ve ever taken in your life. Once you’ve had it to the degree I experienced it, you want MORE.)

In those years, other things happened in my life that I won’t go into, but those life experiences along with the negative effect the glossolalia experience had on me long term eventually set me on my journey to re-examine my religious beliefs, trying to square them with reality. I saw the people that I used to go to Church with (by this time I had quit attending) professed to be acting like Christians, but on social and political issues took stands that were contrary to what I knew of Jesus’s teachings.

As far as the “Spirit Filled” tounge talking Christians go, I saw them falling far short of what the Biblical model of a spirit filled Christian is supposed to be.

Not a single time in my religious life did I see a miracle of any kind, even though these hypocritical selfish people made claims of miracles on almost a daily basis. It was all nonsense. Liars re-affirming one another’s lie.

I FINALLY decided to settle it all for myself, and did the one thing Christians don’t do…I read the entire Bible cover to cover, did some research to boot.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the Mark Twain quote that the best cure for Christianity is to read the Bible.

Smart man that Twain.

I’m 64 now. I was 60 when I read the Bible and woke up from the delusion of religion. I’m free from it now.

I still couldn’t explain my experience, but I am sure it had something to do with firing neurons and chemicals in the brain, because I’ve NEVER in the 64 years of my life seen ANY supernatural miracle of any kind whatsoever anywhere. I’ve seen phony baloney preachers and evangelists pretend to work miracles, and only a moron would go along with their play acting, because where the rubber meets the road, nothing ever really happened.

But in regards to my glossolalia experience, I struggled with it, I struggled hard. But that was because the experience was so powerful and vivid.

But I also had to look just as hard at what it did to me in the long run, and in the long run, it kept me, pardon the expression, fucked up for years.

When I tried to speak with other atheists that were former Pentecostals, I learned they never had the experience, and couldn’t relate. They just faked it while in Church to get out from under the peer pressure. They just thought it was all fake. A lot of them DO fake it because there is so much peer pressure to have the experience.

I’ve only spoken privately with one other former Pentecostal turned atheist that has had the exact same experience I had, and his story is very similar to mine.

I sometimes wish a neuroscientist/biologist or someone in a qualified field that has actually HAD this experience look into it and find out what’s really going on, and what triggers it.

But if you’ve never had the experience, it’s easy to dismiss it as a religious ritual with no experiential substance to it at all. Make fun of it, mock it.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

For those actually having the experience, it’s like taking the most powerful drug you’ve ever taken in your life. (And I mean THE MOST POWERFUL DRUG). When you see people flopping in the floor yammering gibberish in one of these church services, getting “drunk in the spirit” as they call it, they REALLY ARE getting zonked.

It’s what they’ve really got the hots for….It’s the only part of the practice that has any tangibility to it. No one gets healed. No one performs miracles, no one does anything supernatural.

They just want to get as high as they possibly can.

(And they believe God is their hook up for this spiritual “high” party.)

So you tell me, what’s divine about wanting to do nothing but be in a state of ecstatic euphoria, and then lie about everything else?

I’m sorry this correspondence is so long, I just wanted you to know that underneath all the ridiculousness of it, something really is happening inside these people. I experienced it myself all those years ago; I just don’t believe it’s supernatural.

[Name redacted]

Best Friends says “Happy Thanksgiving”

November 27, 2014 • 8:09 am

Don’t expect anything substantive today as the good Professor will be occupied, and nobody in America will be (or should be, if you are) reading websites.  And, as it’s a holiday,  I’ll even allow videos showing d*gs that aren’t getting pummeled by cats.

This one is a heartwarming two-minute Thanksgiving video from the Best Friends Animal Society, described on YouTube as an estimable organization (TRIGGER WARNING: D*gs):

Best Friends Animal Society is a national animal welfare organization focused on ending the killing of dogs and cats in America’s shelters. An authority and leader in the no-kill movement, Best Friends runs the nation’s largest no-kill sanctuary for companion animals, as well as lifesaving programs in partnership with rescue groups and shelters across the country. Since its founding in 1984, Best Friends has helped reduce the number of animals killed in shelters nationwide from 17 million per year to about 4 million. Best Friends has the knowledge, technical expertise and on-the-ground network to end the killing and Save Them All®.

Think of all the strays today who don’t having loving homes, and, if you’re so moved, make a donation at the Best Friends web page. 

 

 

h/t: Blue

Readers’ wildlife photos: Happy Thanksgiving!

November 27, 2014 • 4:41 am

Apropos the holiday, we have just one species to show, America’s wild turkey (Meleagris gallopavo). Happily, these turkeys won’t be eaten, for they’re wild and were photographed by readers.

First, we have three photos by reader Al Blazo, who is surrounded by the birds:

My wife and I live in an urban area of NE Ohio, adjacent to a large park.  Until about five years ago, seeing a turkey in this area was a very rare experience.  During the past five years, however, the turkey population seems to have exploded.
At the beginning of this spring we had two turkeys visit us on a semi-regular basis.  They produced a couple of offspring and then four turkeys were regular visitors.  As the summer rolled on, more joined the pack.  They come to feast on the whole and crushed corn that I put out for the ducks and bush birds that spend their afternoons in our back yard.  Now, 13 turkeys show up every day to chow down, sometimes two and three times a day! They are getting really huge.
Al blazo turkeys
The second photo shows one of the parents walking right up to me and the kitties looking for corn that I place at our bird feeding area.
photo 2
Turkeys and deer seem to have reproduced in abundance this year in the urban park where our house is situated. I’ve never seen as many as I’ve seen this year.  They’re actually starting to cause traffic jams as they mosey about the small 2-lane street in front of our house!
I was sitting in the garage this afternoon when I heard something walking on the roof.  Whatever it was, I thought, it sounded way too huge to be a squirrel or pigeon!  I walked into house so I could peer out the window at the garage roof.  And there it was. The other day I witnessed a turkey larger than the one shown here effortlessly fly, in literal helicopter fashion, straight up from the street (in front of my house) to the top of a dead tree.  The top of the tree was approx. 50′ above the street.  I had no idea that turkeys could fly so effortlessly, and so precisely.
Al blazo Turkey on roof
Reader Gregory James adds another photo:
This is probably not the quality you are looking for in terms of posting on WEIT, but it is cool nonetheless. I took it out my kitchen window earlier today, on the East Side of Milwaukee where we have had quite a number of local wild turkeys in the neighborhood for several years. They are quite tame and local kids can be found playing among them on the boulevard.  So, while our foxes are long gone, we still have interesting wildlife.  (We have a lot of human turkeys, too, of course. But they aren’t as much fun.)
GregorY James turkey
It’s a common belief among Americans that Benjamin Franklin proposed that the turkey and not the bald eagle become the national bird of the U.S. This turns out to be false, but he did denigrate the eagle in favor of the turkey. Here’s an excerpt from a letter from Franklin to his daughter, reprinted in Smithsonian magazine:

“For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perched on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him.

With all this injustice, he is never in good case but like those among men who live by sharping & robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the district. He is therefore by no means a proper emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our country…

“I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America… He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.”

 

Thursday: Hili dialogue

November 27, 2014 • 4:23 am

It’s the Thanksgiving holiday in America, nominally designed for us to proffer gratitude for our “blessings,” but really a chance to gorge ourselves on turkey, watch American football, and then fall asleep in a food-induced stupor. I hope to engage in two of these, and posting will be light. Meanwhile in Dobrzyn, Hili and Cyrus discuss politics.

Hili: Do we return to international affairs or go sniff at the local ones?
Cyrus: The local ones smell better.

P1010986
In Polish:
Hili: Wracamy do spraw międzynarodowych, czy idziemy obwąchiwać lokalne?
Cyrus: Lokalne jednak lepiej pachną.

 

Pre-holiday felids: bully cats and rocket cats

November 26, 2014 • 3:07 pm

I can’t embed this, but click on the screenshot below to go to a HuffPo UK video of Cats Bullying D*gs, or The Way It Should Be:

Screen Shot 2014-11-26 at 2.31.06 PM

And another cat vs. dog video demonstrating felid superiority:

Notice in the second video that artificial selection for speedier dogs has given them to a body form similar to the world’s fastest felids, sculpted by natural selection alone. That’s an intriguing convergence between the products of natural and artificial selection.

h/t: Miss May, Robin ~