Male zebra finches learn their song by imitating conspecifics. To stand out in the crowd, each male develops its own unique song. Because of this individual-specific song, it was long assumed that ...

Their first vocalizations help young zebra finch males to memorize the songs of adults. When babies learn to talk or birds learn to sing, the same principle applies: listen and then imitate. This is ...

It goes a little something like this: A young male zebra finch, whose father taught him a song, shared that song with a brother, with the two youngsters then creating new tunes based on dad’s ...

Animals learn by imitating behaviors, such as when a baby mimics her mother’s speaking voice or a young male zebra finch copies the mating song of an older male tutor, often his father. In a study ...

When a thirsty and lonely male zebra finch changes his mind from getting a drink of water to prioritizing courtship, his dopamine-releasing brain cells reflect his new intensions A pair of Zebra ...

They say that hindsight is 20/20, and though the theory of ecological speciation—which holds that new species emerge in response to ecological changes—seems to hold in retrospect, it has been ...

To a human ear the songs of all male zebra finches sound more or less the same. But faced with a chorus of this simple song, female finches can pick the performer who sings most beautifully. Zebra ...

A pigment that makes feathers and hair orange helps prevent cellular damage by removing excess cysteine from cells.

The babbling of zebra finches creates connections in the brain that enable them to memorize the song of their tutor. The picture shows a zebra finch chick (2nd from left) between a female (left) and a ...