Fun with Science Club®


			My name is Long-tailed McTit of the clan McTit. Carrie Straight 05.18.01 Cooperative breeding birds live all over the world. In cooperative breeding species “helpers” - aduts that don't breed - help out raising young, gathering food, or protecting the young. These helpers are usually close relatives of the young and parents they help. Researchers commonly explain that the helpers help because if they can’t produce young themselves they gain something by helping raise their kin’s young. Many researchers hypothesize that this explanation is true, but have had trouble figuring out how animals recognize their kin. A group of researchers wanted to see if long-tailed tits (Aegithalos caudatus) could recognize their kin by their calls. They located a population of long-tailed tits in Sheffield, United Kingdom. Because they have been studying these birds, they knew how closely related they were to one another. They found males (test subjects) who had both close kin and non-kin breeding nearby and recorded the neighbor’s call notes (a single note the birds use to contact each other). When the nestlings in the nests of the test subjects were approximately 11 days old, the researchers played the recordings of either kin or non-kin near the nest. The researchers recorded the behavior of both adult birds to the sound of the taped calls. After systematic observations, the researchers discovered that the test adults responded differently to the kin and non-kin. The male approached closest to the speakers when non-kin calls were played and females moved closer to the speakers when they heard the calls of kin.


			Hatchwell, B. J., D. J. Ross, M. K. Fowlie, and A. McGowan. 2001. Kin discrimination in cooperatively breeding long-tailed tits. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Biological Sciences Series 268: 885-890.