Fork-Tailed Drongo Fools Competitors to Steal Food

When you take a look at the fork tailed drongo bird of Africa, you might be intimidated. Though the black-coated creature standing on two tiny legs is rather small, don't let it fool you. These guys are notorious for warning off competitors by mimicking the sounds of other animals.

In fact, a recent study shows that these birds often use their own danger alert trick to steal other creatures' food.

After following 64 drongos over the course of 847 hours, the study authors discovered that the bird can imitate up to 51 other bird calls and mammal alert noises.

As the drongo is a master of sounding like other species, its' false alerts often fool other animals. For instance, once the drongo has been discovered for alerting competitors with mimicked sound, it quickly switches to another species, in defense.

"They're rather demonic little black birds with red eyes, a hooked beak and a forked tail," said Tom Flower, a biologist at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, via Reuters. "They're also highly aggressive and are renowned for attacking eagles and hawks, for which they apparently have no fear."

Drongos, native to southern Africa, might catch some meals without fooling others. Yet when times get tough, they get creative.

"Because drongos give reliable predator information some of the time, it maintains host responsiveness (of other animals) since they can never know if the drongo is lying or telling the truth," concluded Amanda Ridley, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Western Australia, another of the researchers.

What do you think?

More information regarding the findings can be seen via the journal Science.