[extropy-chat] Re: EVOLUTION: Birds learning cell ring-tones

[Acy James Stapp]

Many birds, notably parrots, passerines, and hummingbirds, 
have imitative ability. In the wild this is mostly used 
to imitate the warning calls of other birds and animals
(of all kinds) and to imitate the songs of other birds
as a component of sexual selection. An imitative bird
learns song fragments in its youth. It constructs songs
from these, using some subjective criteria for beauty and
adjusts the songs until they prove attractive to other
birds of the species.

Mike Lorrey writes:

> Harvey Newstrom writes:
> Do birds imitate other species in the wild?  If not, why would a bird
> imitate another species heard via a cellphone but not heard directly?

I believe the theory is that the birds regard the ring tones as human
calls, and adopt them as a means of keeping away predators who would
not prey on humans, a sort of Wizard of Oz, "pay no attention to the
man behind the curtain" routine.