{"id":4821,"date":"2011-03-01T17:56:37","date_gmt":"2011-03-01T21:56:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/?p=4821"},"modified":"2011-03-01T17:56:37","modified_gmt":"2011-03-01T21:56:37","slug":"zebra-finches-practice-singing-for-the-ladies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/2011\/03\/01\/zebra-finches-practice-singing-for-the-ladies\/","title":{"rendered":"Zebra finches practice singing for the ladies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog-preprod\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2011\/03\/zebra-finch.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-4822 img-fluid\" title=\"Zebra finch\" src=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog-preprod\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2011\/03\/zebra-finch.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"574\" height=\"384\" srcset=\"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2011\/03\/zebra-finch.jpg 500w, https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/90\/2011\/03\/zebra-finch-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 574px) 100vw, 574px\" \/><\/a>The male <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Zebra_Finch\">zebra finch<\/a> (<em>Taeniopygia guttata<\/em>) learns to sing in private before performing for a female audience, according to Satoshi Kojima and Allison J. Doupe from the University of California, San Francisco. In addition, juvenile male finches seem to step up the quality of their singing, despite their immaturity, when in the presence of potential mates.<\/p>\n<p>As described in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.talkingscience.org\/2011\/03\/songbirds-and-the-sweet-tweeting-of-youth\/\">blog<\/a> <em>Talking Science<\/em>, part of <em>National Public Radio<\/em>\u2019s Science Friday Initiative, \u201cMale finches, by the time they are sexually mature, typically know two different forms of song: undirected, which is performed in isolation, and directed, which is performed for a female audience. Young males learn undirected song first, which characteristically sounds immature and is of variable quality. As adults, they become experts in directed song, a talent they refine specifically for the purpose of courting females.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the researchers reported in the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/em> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/108\/4\/1687\">study<\/a>, the juveniles, when performing for females, seemed to focus on the best parts of the songs that they practiced in private. Kara Rogers wrote in <em>Talking Science<\/em>, \u201cThe discovery reveals that the undirected song of young male finches disguises the actual extent of the birds\u2019 song-learning capabilities\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, despite their inexperience, immature male finches were able to sing at the level of mature finches in the appropriate social conditions: When there was a chance to \u00a0mate.<\/p>\n<p>Read about the zebra finch genome in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/nature\/focus\/zebrafinch\/index.html\"><em>Nature<\/em><\/a> or take the songbird call challenge at <a href=\"http:\/\/enature.com\/challenge\/birdcallchallenge.asp?utm_source=eNature+Master+List&amp;utm_campaign=9012b9b7f3-On_The_Wild_Side_Veterans_Day_2010&amp;utm_medium=email\">enature.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/patries71\/4555736666\/\">Patricia van Casteren<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The male zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata) learns to sing in private before performing for a female audience, according to Satoshi Kojima and Allison J. Doupe from the University of California, San Francisco. In addition, juvenile male finches seem to step up the quality of their singing, despite their immaturity, when in the presence of potential mates. As described in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1115,101,1116,568,1158,969,660],"class_list":["post-4821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-research","tag-adult","tag-birds","tag-female","tag-mating","tag-song","tag-songbirds","tag-zebra-finch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/esa.org\/esablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}