🐦 Wild honeyguide birds learn the local call of their human hunting partners
Across Africa, greater honeyguides lead people to wild bee nests in exchange for beeswax. But the call used to recruit them is culturally specific. Yao hunters in Mozambique use a "brrr-hm" trill-grunt, while Hadza hunters in Tanzania use complex melodic whistles.
A 2023 Science paper tested this: honeyguides in Tanzania responded to Hadza whistles 82% of the time but only 24% to Yao calls. In Mozambique, the pattern flipped: 73% for local calls vs 26% for foreign. The birds learn these preferences. A hunter using the wrong call finds less than half as much honey.
