Bird Brains Suggest How Vocal Learning Evolved

Though they perch far apart on the avian family tree, birds with the ability to learn songs use similar brain structures to sing their tunes. Neurobiologists at Duke University Medical Center now have an explanation for this puzzling likeness. In all three groups of birds with vocal learning abilities - songbirds, parrots and hummingbirds - the brain structures for singing and learning to sing are embedded in areas controlling movement, the researchers discovered.

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Filed under: Biology on March 14th, 2008