An Introduction to Animal Behavior: An Integrative Approach (IMAGE)

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

An Introduction to Animal Behavior: An Integrative Approach

Caption

The integrative nature and complexity of animal behavior studies are illustrated in this example of why birds sing, in this case a singing male oropendola, a member of the New World blackbird family. Data obtained (clockwise from top, left) from studies of the morphology of the syrinx that enables complex song production, the brain circuitry involved in song learning, a phylogeny of some oropendola taxa and sonograms of the song they produce, and a hypothetical relationship between male song repertoire size and the number of offspring sired are combined to provide an answer.

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(c)2011 Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press

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