Superb Starling

Superb starlings —medium-sized, often brilliantly colored birds in eastern Africa—work together to raise their flock’s young. And according to a new study, they reciprocally help each other out in friendship-like relationships. While scientists have long observed animals supporting their blood relatives, the idea that some species also do so with non-relatives has been difficult to prove, because getting that kind of data would necessitate long periods of observation. For the recent study, Rubenstein and his colleagues collected behavioral and genetic information on nine flocks of superb starlings living in East African savannas across 40 breeding seasons, from 2002 to 2021. A superb starling flock includes birds that are born into the group as well as “immigrants” that join from other families. Raising chicks is a communal effort—a set of parents might get help from up to 16 other birds, which deliver food to the hatchlings and fend off predators. But when the next breeding season comes around, these roles often reverse—birds that were previously raising offspring become helpers for new parents, for example. “What happens is the non-relatives come into the group, and they breed pretty quickly, usually in the first year, maybe the second year, and then they take some time off and some of the other birds breed—and we never understood why,” Rubenstein explains to the Guardian ’s Nicola Davis. “They’re forming these pairwise reciprocal relationships, in the sense that I might help you this year, and then you’ll help me in the future.” Ultimately, the team’s analyses indicate that while starlings mostly supported their own relatives, many also reciprocally helped non-relatives, even when their family members could have pitched in instead. Notably, some of these relationships lasted for many years. “The starlings are consistently investing in the same preferred social partners over their lives,” Alexis Earl , a biologist at Cornell University and lead author of the paper, tells the New York Times ’ Asher Elbein. “To me, that sounds like friendship.” Julia Schroeder , a behavioral ecologist at Imperial College London who did not participate in the study, tells the Guardian that the paper confirms previous theories about the birds’ “give-and-take” behavior and provides further evidence for the hypothesis that birds recognize each other individually. Birds Are Beeping and Booping like R2-D2. Their Mimicked Sounds Are Helping Unlock the Secrets of Avian Communication Margherita Bassi is a freelance journalist and trilingual storyteller. Her work has appeared in publications including BBC Travel, Discover magazine, Live Science , Atlas Obscura and Hidden Compass .