Evidence of tutoring in the development of subsong in newly-fledged Meyer's Parrots Poicephalus meyeri

Abstract

Subsongs are vocal trials uttered by young birds to practice songs. Among songbirds, subsongs are displayed by individuals in their first year of life. Studies on Zebra Finches Poephila guttata suggest that the juveniles learn their songs from a vocal tutor, their father. In this study we examine the subsongs in six captive-born Meyer's Parrots Poicephalus meyeri, from fledging time to weaning. Recordings of songs from chicks and fathers were analyzed for similarities in frequency and time parameters. With age, the subsongs of the chicks became more similar to the vocalizations of the fathers with 20% similarity rating in the first week after fledging to 100% at weaning time. Moreover, fledged chicks were exposed to a wide range of stimuli from several species of parrots breeding pairs caged nearby but chicks exclusively learned their fathers' songs. Our data support the hypothesis that Meyer's Parrots are vocal learners and use their father as their tutor.

Measuring communicative complexity across modalities: a new framework in the context of the “social complexity hypothesis” and its application in true lemurs

“…The latter form of vocal learning is particularly interesting in the context of the SCHCC as it may lead to an increasing number of signals used by an individual across its lifespan. So far, evidence for lexical learning was only found in three distantly related groups of birds (parrots, hummingbirds, and songbirds) and four distantly related groups of mammals, i.e., humans (but not in other primates), bats, cetaceans, and elephants(Nowicki and Searcy 2014;Ruch et al 2018).In most of these species, individuals exhibit babbling-like behavior in early life (bats:(Knörnschild et al 2006); cetaceans:(Vergara and Barrett-Lennard 2008); parrots:(Masin et al 2004). Babbling not only is primarily considered as an essential practice for vocal learning but also seems to play a key role in social exchanges with caregivers(Vergara and Barrett-Lennard 2008;Tallerman and Gibson 2012).…”