Feb. 20, 2013 — A male fairy-wren's low
pitch song indicates body size, a new international study has shown. The study
led by University of Melbourne researcher Dr Michelle Hall, is the first to
show that the larger the male fairy wren, the lower the pitch of his song.
"This is the first time we have been able
to show that song pitch indicates body size in song birds," said Dr Hall
from the University's Department of Zoology.
The study, which began when Dr Hall was at the
Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Germany, has been published February 20
in the journal PLOS ONE.
Reliable communication about body size between
animals is particularly important when communicating with mates or rivals. For
example the bigger the rival is, the more likely it is to win in a fight so a
song pitch indicating a large size may deter rivals.
"Surprisingly, there is very little
evidence that the pitch of calls indicates body size differences within
species, except in frogs," she said.
"In birds in particular, there has been no
evidence that the pitch of songs indicated the size of the singer until
now."
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