Nature & Animals Zookeeper Gabe’s Animal Thread Vol 10.0

New Bird Species Identified in Indonesia​

Mar 14, 2025 by Natali Anderson


A cryptic new species of the honeyeater genus Myzomela has been described by an international team of ornithologists from Malaysia, India, the United Kingdom and the United States.

image_13750-Myzomela-babarensis.jpg

Myzomela is the largest and most geographically widespread genus in the honeyeater family Meliphagidae.

First described by naturalists Nicholas Vigors and Thomas Horsfield in 1827, it now contains over 40 scientifically recognized species.

Myzomela ranges from Indonesia to Australia and into the islands of the Pacific Ocean as far as Micronesia and Samoa.

Members of the genus are colorful, nectar-eating birds. They are an important component of island ecosystems and often make up some of the most abundant canopy birds across eastern Indonesia.

In new research, BirdLife International ornithologist Alex Berryman and colleagues performed a taxonomic revision of three populations of a species called the Banda myzomela (Myzomela boiei).

“We investigated the taxonomy of Myzomela boiei, a colorful, sexually dimorphic honeyeater distributed in two subspecies across three island groups in the Banda Sea, southern Maluku province,” the researchers explained.
“Myzomela boiei boiei occurs on the Banda Islands, while Myzomela boiei annabellae occurs on Babar (and possibly its satellites) and the Tanimbar Islands (recorded from at least Yamdena and Selaru, and probably throughout).”

“With the addition of Damar, the Leti Islands, Kisar and other small islets between them, these islands comprise the ‘Banda Sea Islands,’ a region of comparatively low avian diversity but predictably high endemism.”

The authors examined 28 museum specimens and 21 sound recordings of Myzomela boiei, and also performed 152 playback experiments.

The specimens were provided by the American Museum of Natural History, New York, and the Natural History Museum, Tring.

The sound recordings were collated from xeno-canto.org and the Macaulay Library, and by contacting sound-recordists who had visited relevant islands.

“Compared to Myzomela boiei annabellae, Myzomela boiei boiei has a c.10% longer wing, bill and tarsus, more extensive black breast-band, duskier posterior underparts, and a highly divergent song; in playback experiments, Myzomela boiei boiei proved unresponsive to recordings of Myzomela boiei annabellae,” the scientists said.

“However, the songs of Myzomela boiei annabellae on the Tanimbars and Babar are also highly divergent, with populations on both islands unresponsive to the song of the other.”

“Birds on Babar are also slightly larger than Myzomela boiei annabellae on the Tanimbars (with a c.10% longer tail) and may have more scarlet on the back.”

Named Myzomela babarensis (common name is the Babar myzomela), the newly-described species is endemic to Babar, perhaps including the island’s five small satellites.

“Myzomela boiei is currently listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List,” the researchers said.

“While the proposed division of Myzomela boiei into three range-restricted species might ostensibly suggest that each could be at a heightened risk of extinction, all populations are highly adaptable to habitat degradation and are common within their respective ranges.”

“Myzomela babarensis occurs in all manner of wooded habitats, including ‘degraded agricultural land,’ so its population is probably largely unaffected by ongoing forest degradation on Babar.”

“We suggest that Myzomela boiei, Myzomela annabellae and Myzomela babarensis are best considered Least Concern.”

https://www.sci.news/biology/myzomela-babarensis-13750.html
 

Bonobo Calls Show Signs of Complex Communication, Says New Study​


Compositionality, the capacity to combine meaningful elements into larger meaningful structures, is a hallmark of human language. Compositionality can be trivial (combination’s meaning is the sum of the meaning of its parts) or nontrivial (one element modifies the meaning of the other element). In new research, scientists studied the vocal behavior of wild bonobos (Pan paniscus) — our closest living relatives — in the Kokolopori Community Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo and discovered robust empirical evidence for the presence of nontrivial compositionality in these primates.

A hallmark characteristic of human language is its ability to combine discrete elements to form more complex, meaningful structures.

This principle, known as compositionality, allows for the assembly of morphemes into words and words into sentences.

The meaning of the whole is determined by its constituent parts and their arrangement.

Compositionality can take two forms: trivial and nontrivial. In trivial compositionality, each word maintains its independent meaning.

Nontrivial compositionality involves a more complex, nuanced relationship where meaning is not simply a direct sum of the words involved.

Compositionality may not be unique to human language; studies in birds and primates have demonstrated that some animals are capable of combining meaningful vocalizations into trivially compositional strucutres.

However, to date, there is no direct evidence that animals use nontrivial compositionality in their communication.

In their new study, University of Zürich biologist Mélissa Berthet and her colleagues discovered strong empirical evidence that wild bonobos use nontrivial compositionality in their vocal communication.

The authors analyzed 700 recordings of bonobo vocal calls and call combinations and documented over 300 contextual features associated with each utterance

Employing a method derived from distributional semantics, a linguistic framework that measures meaning similarities between words, they analyzed these contextual features to infer the meanings of individual bonobo vocalizations and quantify their relationships.

Then, to assess whether bonobo call combinations follow compositional principles, they applied a multi-step approach previously used to identify compositionality in human communication.

They discovered that bonobo call types integrate into four compositional structures, three of which exhibit non-trivial compositionality, suggesting that bonobo communication shares more structural similarities with human language than previously recognized.

“With our approach, we were able to quantify how the meaning of bonobo single calls and call combinations relate to each other,” said University of Zürich’s Professor Simon Townsend.

“Since humans and bonobos had a common ancestor approximately 7 to 13 million years ago, they share many traits by descent, and it appears that compositionality is likely one of them,” added Harvard University’s Professor Martin Surbeck.

“Our study therefore suggests that our ancestors already extensively used compositionality at least 7 million years ago, if not more,” Professor Townsend said.

https://www.sci.news/biology/bonobo-communication-13800.html
 
A couple videos of two species of leaf cutter ant that I came across while in Panama a couple of weeks ago.

Was so stoked to have stumbled across them. One was about five feet up the jungle from the other, living in complete harmony and generally oblivious to the other.

So much amazing wildlife in Panama, highly recommended for the flora and fauna folk. The people are amazing and friendly too.


 
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