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Slideshow: Bird helps man, man cheats bird

Honeyguides get skunked after helping people find beehives

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In Tanzania, some Hadza still hunt and gather their food, including honey, which makes up to 15% of their diet. But to find the beehives, they need some help.
In Tanzania, some Hadza still hunt and gather their food, including honey, which makes up to 15% of their diet. But to find the beehives, they need some help. Brian Wood
A person whistles to attract a honeyguide, which leads the way to honey bee colonies hidden in the trees. The bird eats honeycomb but needs help gaining access to it.
A person whistles to attract a honeyguide, which leads the way to honey bee colonies hidden in the trees. The bird eats honeycomb but needs help gaining access to it. Brian Wood
Someone must climb the tree and smoke the bees out.
Someone must climb the tree and smoke the bees out. Brian Wood
The reward for this mutual effort is honeycomb filled with honey. The people eat the honey; the birds feast on the leftover honeycomb.
The reward for this mutual effort is honeycomb filled with honey. The people eat the honey; the birds feast on the leftover honeycomb. Brian Wood
However, the bee hunters often bury or burn the honeycomb to keep the birds hungry and thus cooperative. The honeyguides are left with mere fragments of the comb—which must be just enough to make the partnership worth their while.
However, the bee hunters often bury or burn the honeycomb to keep the birds hungry and thus cooperative. The honeyguides are left with mere fragments of the comb—which must be just enough to make the partnership worth their while. Brian Wood
 
 

The Latin name Indicator indicator­­ suits the greater honeyguide well. For perhaps millions of years, this bird has led humans to beehives tucked away in trees on the African savanna. To start the search, a person whistles to attract a honeyguide, which flies in the direction of a hive, chattering along the way to keep the human on track. Once the team reaches the hive, the human breaks it open, scoops out the honey, and leaves the honeycombs behind, supposedly rewarding the honeyguide for its help. But the partnership may not be as mutually beneficial as it seems. In Tanzania, researchers followed individuals from the Hadza, one of the world's few remaining hunter-gatherer groups, on 40 bee-hunting trips. With the honeyguides' help, the Hadza found hives about 58% of the time, more than twice as often as when foraging alone, researchers report in a paper in press at Evolution and Human Behavior. But the humans didn't reward the birds for their help; in seven observations, they even went so far as to burn or bury the honeycomb, telling the researchers that they wanted to keep the birds "hungry" so the avian helpers would guide them to more hives. The researchers call this action a sign of social intelligence on the part of the humans. I call it cheating. So why do honeyguides keep helping humans? The scientists suggest there must still be enough fragments of comb left behind to make it worth the honeyguide's while to keep up its end of the partnership. Check out the slideshow above for a step-by-step look at the honey-hunting process.


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