Honeyguides have increased the Hadza’s success rate of finding beehives by 560 percent. They were led to nests with significantly higher yields than they could find without honeyguides. Previous research also showed that honeyguides helped contribute to eight to 10 percent of the Hadza’s yearly diet.
An anthropologist from UCLA named Brian Wood and ornithologist Claire Spottiswoode from the University of Cape Town led the new study.
They collaborated with the Hadza in Tanzania and the Yao community of northern Mozambique. Their research documented the differences between how each culture attracts the honeyguides.
The Hadza communicates with the birds by whistling when they want to find honey. In Mozambique, the Yao people give off a trilled “Brrr!” followed by a guttural “hmmm!” If a honeyguide is around, it will fly into their camp and chatter back to them.
Then, they track the bird until it lands in the correct tree. Afterward, they smoke out the bees, hack open the hive, and retrieve the sweet combs. The honeyguide sticks around so it can gobble up the leftovers.
The research team studied the vocal signals of the two communities using mathematical models and audio playback experiments.
They found that the honeyguides in Tanzania were three times more likely to cooperate when they heard the calls of the local Hadza people than the calls of the Yao.
Similarly, the honeyguides in Mozambique were nearly twice as likely to cooperate when they heard the Yao call compared to the Hadza call.
The findings reveal that birds are capable of learning new signals, but their communication remains mostly stable over time.
