Bowerbird males are well known for making elaborate constructions, lavished with decorative objects, to impress and attract their mates. Now, researchers reporting online on September 9 in Current Biology, have identified a completely new dimension to these showy structures in great bowerbirds.
"Great bowerbirds are the first known animals besides humans who create a scene with altered visual perspective for viewing by other individuals," said John Endler of Deakin University in Australia. (He says the same principle is commonly used to make structures or scenes of buildings, gardens, or amusement parks appear larger than they are; bowerbirds appear to use it for the reverse effect, to make a scene appear smaller than it is.)
The birds create a staged scene, only visible from the point of view of their female audience, by placing pebbles, bones, and shells around their courts in a very special way that can make objects (or a bowerbird male) appear larger or smaller than they really are.
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Animals