Depending on their “personality,” Australia’s magnificent relay tails defend their nest and territory with varying degrees of aggressiveness. Austrian and Australian researchers have been able to demonstrate this in a study. They suspect that the different personality traits may be important to the birds’ survival.
The mermaid is a songbird species found in Australia and Tasmania. During the breeding season, the males of the birds, which can grow up to 20 centimeters in size, are characterized by a colorful, blue-dominated plumage. The animals live in small groups that breed together and together help to feed and defend the offspring.
For the study, a team led by Diane Colombelli-Négrel of Flinders University (Australia) and Sonia Kleindorfer of the Department of Behavioral and Cognitive Biology at the University of Vienna and the Konrad Lorenz Research Center in Grünau im Almtal, Upper Austria, examined the behavior of the animals both in freedom in the Australian bushland and during short-term captivity.
Measured aggressiveness and daring
The captured birds were judged on personality traits such as boldness, sense of discovery and aggressiveness. On the one hand, it assessed how much they resisted being grabbed by the scientists while being measured. On the other hand, they were observed behaving in a new environment (a cage) and confronted with a mirror.
In the field, the birds were confronted with the call of a harmless fellow songbird (garden fantail) and that of a potential predator, the sooty starling, to assess how well they defended their territory or nest.
Similar behavior in captivity and freedom
In particular, birds that behaved very aggressively towards their reflection in the cage in the cage also reacted more strongly to the call of the predator in the wild. Conversely, Magnificent Seasontails, largely ignoring the mirror in the cage, also paid less attention to the possible threat of a sooty starling. Also, individuals who explored a new environment — in the study, the cage — responded very actively and scrupulously more aggressively to predator calls than those who showed little interest in the new environment.
For the researchers, their findings “support a growing body of research demonstrating the importance of animal personalities for survival-relevant response strategies and social behavior.” They emphasize that “personality traits in animals may have an adaptive utility for survival.”
Source: Krone
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