Australian zebra finches sing a rhythmic high-pitched song while incubating their eggs in a hot environment, which researchers have named a “heat call”. Experiments now show that this call influences ...

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 ...

Having confirmed findings in adult zebra finches, Gadagkar and his team at Columbia University turned their attention to juveniles, who were learning to produce sound for the first time. A juvenile's ...

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 ...

Zebra finches can not only distinguish the full range of their species’ vocalizations but also organize them by meaning, according to a new study. The results suggest a surprising level of semantic ...

Simon Griffith receives funding from The Australian Research Council, and this work was supported by a grant to Marc Naguib from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). Hugo Loning ...