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<p>For those who don't have a subscription to the New York Times,
the full text without photos is below. For those who have a
subscription to the NYT, here's the link to the article:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/science/hummingbirds-living-in-a-hive-found-for-the-first-time.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xE4.AvQI.4v4X26EQp3Jl&smid=url-share">https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/14/science/hummingbirds-living-in-a-hive-found-for-the-first-time.html?unlocked_article_code=1.xE4.AvQI.4v4X26EQp3Jl&smid=url-share</a></p>
<p>Gene Beall<br>
Sammamish, WA<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:gene.beall@gmail.com">gene.beall@gmail.com</a></p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><b>Hummingbirds Living in a Hive Found for the First Time In a
remote mountain cave in Ecuador, hummingbirds were discovered
sleeping and nesting together.</b><br>
</p>
<p> </p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Image: A male
Chimborazo hillstar, a subspecies of high-altitude hummingbird
native to the Andes of Ecuador and far southern
Colombia.Credit...Dusan Brinkhuizen</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">
By Rachel Nuwer</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Feb. 14, 2025</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in"></p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Hummingbirds are
tiny and delicate, but don’t be fooled: They are among the most
aggressive birds in the avian kingdom. Their territorial fury is
especially aimed at other hummingbirds. Competition over a patch
of
flowers or a mate often results in high-speed aerial chases,
divebombing and beak jousting.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">So when Gustavo
Cañas-Valle, an ornithologist and birding guide, stumbled across a
cave full of hummingbirds nesting and roosting together in
Ecuador’s
High Andes, he could hardly believe it.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">“I thought, ‘This
looks like a colony,’” Mr. Cañas-Valle said. He added, “They
were like bees.”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">He documented 23
adult birds and four chicks,all of the subspecies Oreotrochilus
chimborazo chimborazo, commonly known as the Chimborazo hillstar.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Mr. Cañas-Valle’s
discovery, described in the journal Ornithology in November, may
be
the first documented example of hummingbirds that nested and
roosted
communally. It is also notable that he found the birds engaging in
both these behaviors in the same space — something that even
highly
social species from other bird families tend not to do.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Juan Luis Bouzat,
an
evolutionary geneticist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio
and
another author of the study who is also Mr. Cañas-Valle’s former
graduate adviser, said the finding raised fascinating questions
about
the role environmental factors can play in driving group living
and
in promoting the evolution of certain social traits.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Dr. Bouzat and Mr.
Cañas-Valle at first hypothesized that harsh environmental
conditions along the Chimborazo volcano where they found the nests
had forced the birds together. The birds live more than 12,000
feet
above sea level on a sparsely vegetated slope where it is hard to
come by nectar-providing flowers, water or shelter from freezing
temperatures and biting winds.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">“Either you
aggregate or perish,” Dr. Bouzat said.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Image: A view of a
snow-topped mountain with a sparsely vegetated plain in the
foreground. The birds live more than 12,000 feet above sea level
on a sparsely vegetated slope where it is hard to come by
nectar-providing flowers, water or shelter from freezing
temperatures and biting winds.Credit...Gustavo Cañas-Valle<br>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">The birds live more
than 12,000 feet above sea level on a sparsely vegetated slope
where
it is hard to come by nectar-providing flowers, water or shelter
from
freezing temperatures and biting winds.Credit...Gustavo
Cañas-Valle</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">But this may not be
the full story. Mr. Cañas-Valle explored the region and found six
other examples of hummingbirds nesting and roosting together. He
and
Dr. Bouzat also surveyed concrete drainage pipes scattered around
the
area. The pipes had similar environmental conditions to the cave
but
could fit only one or two nests. The researchers found that just
45
percent of the pipes were occupied by nesting females —
significantly lower than the frequency expected by chance,
according
to computer simulations the authors conducted.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">There were
significantly more nests found in groups, on the other hand, than
there would have been if randomly predicted. Of the 74 total nests
Mr. Cañas-Valle documented, 82 percent were part of groups. Taken
together, these findings implied that the birds were actively
choosing group living over nesting alone.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Dr. Bouzat suspects
that environmental factors originally caused the birds to
aggregate
but that once they bunched together, they evolved traits that made
them more social, helping them adapt to their environment.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">“I was very
surprised to read about a truly colonial hummingbird, because most
are aggressive and intolerant of others of the same species,” said
Scott Robinson, an ornithologist at the Florida Museum of Natural
History who was not involved in the work. “No one would have
considered a hummingbird a candidate for coloniality.”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Image: A
hummingbird
nestled on orange-flowering shrubs. The hummingbird's plumage is a
dull gray and orange, faintly mimicking the surrounding flora. A
female Chimborazo hillstar. Researchers have discovered nesting
patterns for this hummingbird subspecies that imply its members
are actively choosing to live as a group rather than
alone.Credit...Gustavo Cañas-Valle<br>
</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">A female Chimborazo
hillstar. Researchers have discovered nesting patterns for this
hummingbird subspecies that imply its members are actively
choosing
to live as a group rather than alone.Credit...Gustavo Cañas-Valle</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Charles Brown, a
behavioral ecologist at the University of Tulsa who also was not
involved in the research, said he was not convinced, however, that
the hummingbirds observed in the study actually qualified as being
colonial.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Animals that live
in
true colonies often behave in ways that benefit their neighbors,
Dr.
Brown said, such as working together to find food or detect
predators. While it was interesting to find hummingbirds in close
quarters, “there was no evidence of any social behavior on the
part
of the animals nesting in these clusters,” he said.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">Mr. Cañas-Valle
pointed out, however, that he observed the hummingbirds from the
cave
departing and returning together, suggesting a cohesive social
group.
“It’s not that each one is doing their own thing,” Dr. Bouzat
said.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">But the authors
agree that more research is needed. They hope to conduct
behavioral
studies to determine if the hummingbirds are merely tolerating
each
other or are actively cooperating.</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in">They would also
like
to conduct surveys for other hummingbird species in similar High
Andes environments to see if they are engaging in group living,
too.
“I’m sure there are other unknown caves in the mountains where
hummingbirds live,” Mr. Cañas-Valle said. “I’m expecting to
find other species, for sure.”</p>
<p style="line-height: 100%; margin-bottom: 0in"><br>
</p>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/14/25 9:36 PM, via Tweeters wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:21AA9DCF-02EE-45BE-B141-615246A47544@yahoo.com">
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This is just the beginning of an article published in The NY
Times. Too long & too many pix to post the whole article
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