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Great Tit Telomeres, Baby Talk, Brainy Birds

10,000 Birds

They used Great T**s from non-urban and urban areas, and mixed them up through breeding, to rule out any possible family history of telomere length. In this study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a group of juvenile zebra finches was allowed to interact with an adult.

Mammals 112
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Songbird-parrot link strengthened in new study, with implications for vocal learning

10,000 Birds

This relatively new technique has been used to study relationships among and within several groups of mammals, including lagamorphs (rabbits and hares), rodents, and cetaceans (whales and dolphins), but I couldn’t find many references to its application in avian systematics yet. Ringer Suh et al.

Parrots 193
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Africa’s Big Five and Little Five

10,000 Birds

Generally the large family herds of buffalo are peaceful, but the old bulls (called “dagga” boys, “dagga” being a Zulu word for “mud” since they are often covered with the substance after their long wallows) who have left the herds tend to be furious with life in general and anyone they can smash in particular.

Buffalo 209