Living by the law of the jungle, animals have developed all sorts of survival skills. But are those abilities born with them or nurtured.
The Animal Ecology Group at the University of Vigo in Spain studied 90 yellow-legged gulls, revealing that unhatched seabirds can communicate with their sibling eggs nearby by vibrating their shells.
In the study, all the eggs were distributed into three nests. Six days before hatching, two of the three eggs from the same nest were exposed to sounds signaling predator presence randomly four times a day, while the third remained in the nest.
A yellow-legged gull. /VCG Photo
Result shows that embryos tend to vibrate more and vocalize less in response to alarming sounds, indicating rise in stress hormones. This makes them more aware of their surroundings including alarming sounds, so they respond quicker in dangerous situations.
While the two exposed embryos vibrated more vigorously, their third nestmate received the message and mimicked the vibration. This kind of communication helps the chicks to bond before hatching and adapt to hostile environment outside the shells.
This is a breakthrough experiment as the phenomenon is likely to occur in other bird species, according to the lead author of the study, Jose C. Noguera. However, scientists still cannot answer how the embryos transmit and perceive the vibration.
(Video provided by CGTN Nature filming crew. The bird in the video is a black tailed gull in Changdao County, north end of China's Shandong Province.)
(Cover image via VCG.)
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