Greater honeyguide

Last updated

Greater honeyguide
Greater Honeyguide (Indicator indicator) (45663851145), crop.jpg
Adult male in Tanzania
Scientific classification OOjs UI icon edit-ltr.svg
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Chordata
Class: Aves
Order: Piciformes
Family: Indicatoridae
Genus: Indicator
Species:
I. indicator
Binomial name
Indicator indicator
(Sparrman, 1777) [2]
Synonyms
  • Cuculus indicator (protonym)

The greater honeyguide (Indicator indicator) is a bird in the family Indicatoridae, paleotropical near passerine birds related to the woodpeckers. Its English and scientific names refer to its habit of guiding people to bee colonies. Claims that it also guides non-human animals are disputed.

Contents

The greater honeyguide is a resident breeder in sub-Saharan Africa. It is found in a variety of habitats that have trees, especially dry open woodland, but not in the West African jungle.

Description

Juvenile in Maasai Mara - Kenya Greater Honeyguide - Kenya.jpg
Juvenile in Maasai Mara - Kenya

The greater honeyguide has bold white patches on the sides of the tail and is about 20 cm (7.9 in) long and weighs about 50 g (1.8 oz). The male has a black throat, pink bill, dark grey-brown upperparts and white underparts. The wings are streaked whitish, and the shoulder patch is yellow. The female is duller, has a blackish bill, and her throat is black. Immature birds have olive-brown upperparts with a white rump, yellow throat and upper breast.

Behaviour and ecology

The greater honeyguide is known to guide people to the nests of wild bees. [3] [4] A guiding bird attracts a person's attention with wavering, chattering "'tya' notes compounded with peeps or pipes", [5] sounds it also gives in aggression. The guiding bird flies toward an occupied nest (greater honeyguides know the sites of many bees' nests in their territories) and then stops nearby the nest. Honey-hunters then do a final search for the bee colony, and if deemed suitable, harvest honey from the bee colony through the use of fire and smoke to subdue the bees, and axes and machetes to expose the colony. After harvesting the honey, the honeyguide eats wax that is left. [6]

One study found that use of honeyguides by the Boran people of East Africa reduces their search time for honey by approximately two-thirds. Because of this benefit, the Boran use a specific loud whistle, known as the fuulido, when a search for honey is about to begin. The fuulido doubles the encounter rate with honeyguides. [3] In northern Tanzania, Honeyguides increased the Hadza's rate of finding bee nests by 560%, and led men to significantly higher yielding nests than those found without honeyguides. [4] Another study of the Yao honey-hunters in northern Mozambique showed that the honeyguides responded to the traditional brrrr-hmm call of the honey-hunters. The chances of finding a bee-hive were greatly increased when the traditional call was used. That study reported anecdotes from Yao honey-hunters that adult but not juvenile honeyguides respond to the specific honey-hunting calls. [7]

In African folklore, it is frequently noted that the honeyguide should be thanked with a gift of honey; if not, it may lead its follower to a lion, bull elephant, or venomous snake as punishment. However, “others maintain that honeycomb spoils the bird, and leave it to find its own bits of comb”. [6] While many depictions of the human-honeyguide mutualism emphasize honey-hunters graciously repaying the birds with piles of wax left in a conspicuous location, such behavior is not universal. The Hadza people of northern Tanzania frequently burn, bury, or hide the wax that lays with the intent of keeping the bird hungry, and more likely to guide again. [4] Some greater honeyguides have stopped this guiding behavior, or mutualism, in parts of Kenya, due to a loss of response from people in the area. [8] [9]

Possible guiding of animals

Indicator indicator 1838, crop.jpg
Adult male illustrated by Nicolas Huet
Guiding call near Pretoria, South Africa

Many sources say that this species also guides honey badgers. [10] [11] [12] Sparrman noted in the 18th century that indigenous Africans reported this interaction, but Friedmann adds that no biologist has seen it. Friedmann quotes reports that greater honeyguides guide baboons and speculates that the behavior evolved in relation to these species before the appearance of humanity. [13] However, they state,

In addition to that listed by Friedmann (1955:41-47), the only recent record is of a greater honeyguide giving its guiding call to baboons at Wankie Game Reserve, Zimbabwe (C. J. Vernon, pers. comm.). However, Vernon did not see a positive response by the baboons to the honeyguide. No additional records of honeyguides and ratels have been reported since Friedmann (1955) and the first-hand accounts given in his review in support of this association are all of incomplete guiding sequences. No biologist has ever reported this association.

Honeyguides are thought to guide other animals, a behavior that may have evolved with "early human". Later studies estimate that interaction between honeyguides and honey badgers likely occurs, "but is highly localized or extremely difficult to observe, or both". [14] It has also been acknowledged that bee colonies are seasonally very common in Africa and ratels probably have no trouble finding them. [15]

Another argument against guiding of non-human animals is that near cities, where Africans increasingly buy sugar rather than hunting for wild honey, guiding behavior is disappearing. Ultimately, it may disappear everywhere. [6]

Diet

Immature male in The Gambia Greater Honeyguide, Gambia.jpg
Immature male in The Gambia

The greater honeyguide feeds primarily on the contents of bee colonies: beeswax, eggs, larvae and pupae; and waxworms. It enters bees' nests while the bees are torpid in the early morning, feeds at abandoned hives and scavenges at hives robbed by people or other large animals, notably the honey badger. It frequently associates with other honeyguides at bees' nests; immatures dominate adults, and immatures of this species dominate all others.

Reproduction

The greater honeyguide is a brood parasite. It lays white eggs in series of 3 to 7, for a total of 10 to 20 in a year. Each egg is laid in a different nest of a bird of another species, including some woodpeckers, barbets, kingfishers, bee-eaters, wood hoopoes, starlings, and large swallows. It is common for the female greater honeyguide to break the host's eggs when laying her own. [16] All the species parasitized nest in holes, covered nests, or deep cup nests. The chick has a membranous hook on the bill that it uses, while still blind and featherless, to kill the host's young outright or by repeated wounds.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bee</span> Clade of insects

Bees are winged insects closely related to wasps and ants, known for their roles in pollination and, in the case of the best-known bee species, the western honey bee, for producing honey. Bees are a monophyletic lineage within the superfamily Apoidea. They are currently considered a clade, called Anthophila. There are over 20,000 known species of bees in seven recognized biological families. Some species – including honey bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees – live socially in colonies while most species (>90%) – including mason bees, carpenter bees, leafcutter bees, and sweat bees – are solitary.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honey bee</span> Colonial flying insect of genus Apis

A honey bee is a eusocial flying insect within the genus Apis of the bee clade, all native to mainland Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmopolitan distribution of honey bees, introducing multiple subspecies into South America, North America, and Australia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bee-eater</span> Widespread group of insectivorous bird species in the family Meropidae

The bee-eaters are a group of birds in the family Meropidae, containing three genera and thirty species. Most species are found in Africa and Asia, with a few in southern Europe, Australia, and New Guinea. They are characterised by richly coloured plumage, slender bodies, and usually elongated central tail feathers. All have long down-turned bills and medium to long wings, which may be pointed or round. Male and female plumages are usually similar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honeyguide</span> Family of near passerine birds

Honeyguides are a family birds in the order Piciformes. They are also known as indicator birds, or honey birds, although the latter term is also used more narrowly to refer to species of the genus Prodotiscus. They have an Old World tropical distribution, with the greatest number of species in Africa and two in Asia. These birds are best known for their interaction with humans. Honeyguides are noted and named for one or two species that will deliberately lead humans directly to bee colonies, so that they can feast on the grubs and beeswax that are left behind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Red-throated wryneck</span> Species of bird from sub-Saharan Africa

The red-throated wryneck, also known as the rufous-necked wryneck or red-breasted wryneck, is a species of wryneck in the woodpecker family closely related to the Eurasian wryneck. Its three subspecies are resident in much of sub-Saharan Africa in open habitats with some trees. It is a slim, elongated bird about 19 cm (7.5 in) in length, with a small head, fine bill, long fan-shaped tail and cryptic plumage intricately patterned in greys and browns. The sexes look similar, although males are slightly larger. The diet of the adults and young is almost entirely ants at all stages of their life cycles. The call of the red-throated wryneck is a series of repeated harsh, shrill notes. When threatened, a bird will twist its neck and head in a snake-like manner while making a hissing sound, presumably to deter predators.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Honey badger</span> Species of mammal

The honey badger, also known as the ratel, is a mammal widely distributed in Africa, Southwest Asia, and the Indian subcontinent. Because of its wide range and occurrence in a variety of habitats, it is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brood parasitism</span> Animal reliance on other individuals to raise its young

Brood parasitism is a subclass of parasitism and phenomenon and behavioural pattern of certain animals, brood parasites, that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host's.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dominance hierarchy</span> Type of socially subordinate ranking

In the zoological field of ethology, a dominance hierarchy is a type of social hierarchy that arises when members of animal social groups interact, creating a ranking system. A dominant higher-ranking individual is sometimes called an alpha, and a submissive lower-ranking individual is called a beta. Different types of interactions can result in dominance depending on the species, including ritualized displays of aggression or direct physical violence. In social living groups, members are likely to compete for access to limited resources and mating opportunities. Rather than fighting each time they meet, individuals of the same sex establish a relative rank, with higher-ranking individuals often gaining more access to resources and mates. Based on repetitive interactions, a social order is created that is subject to change each time a dominant animal is challenged by a subordinate one.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stingless bee</span> Bee tribe, reduced stingers, strong bites

Stingless bees (SB), sometimes called stingless honey bees or simply meliponines, are a large group of bees (from about 462 to 552 described species), comprising the tribe Meliponini (or subtribe Meliponina according to other authors). They belong in the family Apidae (subfamily Apinae), and are closely related to common honey bees (HB, tribe Apini), orchid bees (tribe Euglossini), and bumblebees (tribe Bombini). These four bee tribes belong to the corbiculate bees monophyletic group. Meliponines have stingers, but they are highly reduced and cannot be used for defense, though these bees exhibit other defensive behaviors and mechanisms. Meliponines are not the only type of bee incapable of stinging: all male bees and many female bees of several other families, such as Andrenidae and Megachilidae (tribe Dioxyini), also cannot sting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yao people (East Africa)</span> Tribe in East Africa

The Yao people are a major Bantu ethnic and linguistic group living at the southern end of Lake Malawi. They played an important role in the history of Southeast Africa, notably in the 19th century. The Yao are a predominantly Muslim-faith group of about two million, whose homelands encompass the countries of Malawi, the north of Mozambique, and the Ruvuma and Mtwara Regions of Tanzania. The Yao have a strong cultural identity, transcending national borders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yellow-rumped honeyguide</span> Species of bird

The yellow-rumped honeyguide is a sparrow-sized bird in the honeyguide family that is found in Asia, mainly in montane forests along the Himalayas. They are very finch-like but the feet are strong and zygodactyl, with two toes facing forward and two backward. They perch on honeycombs and feed on wax. Males tend to be territorial and stay near honeycombs while females and juveniles forage widely. They are brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of tree-hole breeders, possibly barbets.

<i>Apis laboriosa</i> Species of insect

Apis laboriosa or Himalayan giant honey bee, is the world's largest honey bee; single adults can measure up to 3.0 cm (1.2 in) in length. Before 1980, Apis laboriosa was considered to be a subspecies of the widespread Apis dorsata, the giant honey bee, but in 1980 and for almost 20 years thereafter it was elevated to the rank of a separate species. It was classified once again as a subspecies of Apis dorsata by Michael S. Engel in 1999, but was confirmed as a full species in 2020 on the basis of co-occurrence with Apis dorsata at many sites with no sign of interbreeding. It is highly adapted to its highland habitat in behavior.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hadza people</span> Ethnic group

The Hadza, or Hadzabe, are a protected hunter-gatherer Tanzanian indigenous ethnic group, primarily based in Baray, an administrative ward within Karatu District in southwest Arusha Region. They live around the Lake Eyasi basin in the central Rift Valley and in the neighboring Serengeti Plateau. As descendants of Tanzania's aboriginal, pre-Bantu expansion hunter-gatherer population, they have probably occupied their current territory for thousands of years with relatively little modification to their basic way of life until the last century. They have no known close genetic relatives and their language is considered an isolate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Striped kingfisher</span> Species of bird

The striped kingfisher is a species of bird in the tree kingfisher subfamily. It was first described by Edward, Lord Stanley, in Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia in 1814 as "Chelicut kingfisher" Alaudo Chelicuti.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Abyssinian scimitarbill</span> Species of bird

The Abyssinian scimitarbill is a species of bird in the family Phoeniculidae. The term Abyssinia, is an old name for the region of Ethiopia, and scimitar refers to a curved sword, which its bill resembles. It is found in Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda. The bird is non migratory, diurnal, and terrestrial. Their nests are sometimes parasitized by the greater honeyguide which are favored by some because they can guide to beehives.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Least honeyguide</span> Species of bird

The least honeyguide is a small species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. It is found in sub-Saharan Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scaly-throated honeyguide</span> Species of bird

The scaly-throated honeyguide is a species of bird in the family Indicatoridae. They have a mutualistic relationship with humans in which they attract beekeepers towards bees' nests and then feeding on the remains, especially larvae.

<i>Indicator</i> (genus) Genus of near passerine birds in the honeyguide family

Indicator is a genus of near passerine birds in the honeyguide family. The name refers to the behaviour of some species, notably the greater honeyguide, which guide humans to bee colonies so that they can share in the spoils of wax and insects when the nest is broken into.

In linguistics, displacement is the capability of language to communicate about things that are not immediately present ; i.e., things that are either not here or are not here now.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mellivory</span> Consumption of honey

Mellivory is a term for the eating of honey. Honey is a sweet and viscous substance created by some eusocial insects, notably bees, for consumption by members of their hives, especially their young. Honey is also consumed by many other animals including human beings, who have developed beekeeping to make supplies of honey both reliable and plentiful. Despite honey's limited antimicrobial properties, it remains a food source for a variety of microorganisms.

References

  1. BirdLife International (2016). "Indicator indicator". IUCN Red List of Threatened Species . 2016: e.T22680616A92868613. doi: 10.2305/IUCN.UK.2016-3.RLTS.T22680616A92868613.en . Retrieved 11 November 2021.
  2. Sparrman, 1777. Cuculus indicator (protonym). Philos. Trans., 67, p. 43, pl. 1. BHL
  3. 1 2 Isack, H. A.; H.-U. Reyer (1989). "Honeyguides and honey gatherers: interspecific communication in a symbiotic relationship". Science. 243 (4896): 1343–1346. Bibcode:1989Sci...243.1343I. doi:10.1126/science.243.4896.1343. PMID   17808267. S2CID   4220280.
  4. 1 2 3 Wood, B. M.; Pontzer, H.; Raichlen, D. A.; Marlowe, F. W. (2014). "Mutualism and manipulation in Hadza–honeyguide interactions" . Evolution and Human Behavior. 35 (6): 540–546. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2014.07.007.
  5. Short, L.; Horne, J. (2002). "Family Indicatoridae (Honeyguides)". In Del Hoyo, J.; Elliott, A.; Sargatal, J. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World: Jacamars to Woodpeckers. Vol. 7. Lynx Edicions. ISBN   978-84-87334-37-5.
  6. 1 2 3 Short, L.; Horne, J. & Diamond, A. W. (2003). "Honeyguides" . In Perrins, C. (ed.). Firefly Encyclopedia of Birds. Firefly Books. pp. 396–397. ISBN   978-1-55297-777-4.
  7. Spottiswoode, C. N.; Begg, K. S.; Begg, C. M. (2016). "Reciprocal signaling in honeyguide-human mutualism". Science. 353 (6297): 387–389. Bibcode:2016Sci...353..387S. doi:10.1126/science.aaf4885. PMID   27463674. S2CID   206648494 . Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  8. Dean, W. R. J.; Siegfried, W. R.; MacDonald, I. A. W. (1990). "The Fallacy, Fact, and Fate of Guiding Behavior in the Greater Honeyguide". Conservation Biology. 4 (1): 99–101. Bibcode:1990ConBi...4...99D. doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.1990.tb00272.x. JSTOR   2385968.
  9. Friedmann, H. (1955). "The Honey-Guides". United States National Museum Bulletin. 208: 50.
  10. Attenborough, D. (1998). The Life of Birds . Princeton University Press. ISBN   978-0-691-01633-7.
  11. Estes, R. D. (1999). The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals. Chelsea Green. pp. 361–362. ISBN   978-1-890132-44-6.
  12. Zimmerman, D. A.; Turner, D. A. & Pearson, D. J. (1999). Birds of Kenya and Northern Tanzania. Princeton University Press. p. 406. ISBN   978-0-691-01022-9.
  13. Dean, W. R. J.; MacDonald, I. A. W. (1981). "A review of African birds feeding in association with mammals". Ostrich. 52 (3): 135–155. Bibcode:1981Ostri..52..135D. doi:10.1080/00306525.1981.9633599.
  14. Van der Wal, J. E. M.; Afan, A. I.; Anyawire, M.; Begg, C. M.; Begg, K. S.; Dabo, G. A.; Gedi, I. I.; Harris, J. A.; Isack, H. A.; Ibrahim, J. I.; Jamie, G. A.; Kamboe, W.-B. W.; Kilawi, A. O.; Kingston, A.; Laltaika, E. A.; Lloyd-Jones, D. J.; M'manga, G. M.; Muhammad, N. Z.; Ngcamphalala, C. A.; Nhlabatsi, S. O.; Oleleteyo, T. T.; Sanda, M.; Tsamkxao, L.; Wood, B. M.; Spottiswoode, C. N.; Cram, D. L. (2023). "Do honey badgers and greater honeyguide birds cooperate to access bees' nests? Ecological evidence and honey-hunter accounts". Journal of Zoology. 321 (1): 22–32. doi: 10.1111/jzo.13093 .
  15. Short, L. & Horne, J. (2002). Toucans, Barbets and Honeyguides. Oxford University Press. pp. 473–480. ISBN   978-0-19-854666-5.
  16. Spottiswoode, C. N.; Colebrook-Robjent, J. F. R. (2007). "Egg puncturing by the brood parasitic Greater Honeyguide and potential host counteradaptations". Behavioral Ecology. 18 (4): 792–799. doi: 10.1093/beheco/arm025 . hdl: 10.1093/beheco/arm025 .

Further reading