The perfect tracker that took half a year to design was dismantled by the Bully Bird in ten minutes

This bird has become a spirit!

In Australia, scientists carefully designed a bird tracker. Who would have thought that as soon as the Australian magpies were installed, before the scientists left, the birds cooperated with each other and jointly removed the tracker! This highly intelligent bully bird once again showed humans who is the real boss.

That's it! (The boss vibe is overwhelming) | Donald Hobern / Wikimedia Commons

The tracker I worked on for half a year was dismantled in ten minutes

The Australian magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) is also known as the black-backed magpie. Although it is called "magpie", it is not the magpie genus of the Corvidae family that we often talk about, but belongs to the magpie genus of the Jú family. In Australia and New Guinea, the black-backed magpie can be seen everywhere, and they are notorious bullies.

This time, the tracker they dismantled was the masterpiece that scientists had been researching for half a year.

In 2019, ecologist Dominique Potvin decided to study the social behavior of black-backed magpies, and the first step was to track the birds' locations.

Potvin and his team spent six months designing and perfecting a miniature GPS tracking device. The device is very light, with the tracker and the straps for fixing it weighing only 2.7 grams, which is only about 1% of the black-backed magpie's weight (the tracking devices used in general bird research account for 3% to 5% of the bird's weight), and in theory it will not affect the bird's normal life.

The strap and tracker look like this. According to the design, the release switch needs to come into contact with the magnet to be released. | References [2]

The tracker is also designed to be difficult to unlock. The switch is only one millimeter wide, requires a magnet to open, and is located on the bird's chest, so the bird can't reach it by lowering its head or flapping its wings, let alone remove it. In any way, this new tracker is perfect - at least that's what the researchers think.

The researchers were confident that they installed tracking devices on five wild black-backed magpies and tied different colored leg bands to distinguish each bird. After confirming that they had no obvious discomfort, the researchers released the black-backed magpies.

However, something unexpected happened - in less than half an hour, the perfect tracking device on a black-backed magpie was removed! And the whole process happened right under the researchers' noses.

At first, a black-backed magpie with a tracker found the extra object on its body and began to peck at it but failed to remove it. At this time, a companion without a tracker came over and used its beak to feel for the strap on its friend. In just 10 minutes, it found the only breakthrough point - a 1 mm long buckle, and decisively broke it with its beak.

Black-backed magpies at play | Sardaka / Wikimedia Commons

Soon after, the researchers discovered that another black-backed magpie standing on the power line also removed the tracker with the help of its peers. Subsequently, they directly observed four such mutual assistance incidents.

Three days later, the trackers on the five black-backed magpies were all removed; five days later, the colorful leg bands were gone too - Potvin and her team's six months of preparation were destroyed by the research subjects in just a few days.

Even if you can't benefit yourself, you should still lend a helping hand

The researchers were so helpless that they had to interrupt their original research plan. However, looking at these birds, they suddenly realized that this rescue operation was special in itself - because the black-backed magpies who helped their companions remove the trackers would not benefit from the rescue operation at all.

The kind bird that volunteered to help its companion remove the tracker did not have a tracker that needed to be removed. This kind of completely altruistic behavior is very rare. The cooperative behavior between animals is usually based on mutual benefit. Moreover, putting tracking devices on animals in the wild is a common research method, but no one has ever described this behavior of helping their own species remove the device. These black-backed magpies are the first case.

The parent on the right hands over an apple, and the child on the left prepares to eat it | Toby Hudson / Wikimedia Commons

Why do black-backed magpies have such selfless rescue actions? Researchers speculate that this may be related to their high degree of sociality.

Black-backed magpies live in groups, often forming close-knit small groups. In their daily lives, they may have had occasions where they needed to cooperate with each other, such as hunting together and fighting natural enemies, which made them understand that cooperation is the most advantageous strategy. Under the inertial thinking of "cooperation first", when they encounter this new dilemma - their companions are tied with trackers, they also tend to actively cooperate and help their companions get rid of the restraints. Moreover, in the long run, this is not without benefits. This time it is their companions who are equipped with trackers, but next time it may be them who are tied up.

Birds grooming each other | Judi Lapsley Miller / Wikimedia Commons

The researchers also proposed another hypothesis - the black-backed magpie may have mistaken the tracker for a "parasite."

The most common cooperative behavior among birds is allopreening. Mutual grooming has many benefits. It not only removes small parasites between feathers, but also strengthens the relationship between companions and reduces the secretion of stress hormones. In the eyes of the black-backed magpie, the tracker may be an alternative "parasite". Helping companions to remove the tracker may be to help them remove the "parasite", keep companions clean and reduce stress. Similar behavior has also appeared in the Sechellensis reed warbler (Acrocephalus sechellensis) group, which will help their peers remove seeds stuck on their feathers.

He is highly intelligent, but also a bully.

It is not enough to have a heart that is willing to help birds. In order for the black-backed magpie to successfully rescue its companion, it also needs to have superb problem-solving skills. After all, it is not an easy task for an animal to find a switch that is only 1 mm long within 10 minutes and break it with clever strength.

The black-backed magpie is indeed known for its ability to learn quickly, as evidenced by its varied vocalizations. They have a variety of calls, with pitch variations of up to four octaves, and can imitate the calls of more than 35 native and non-native bird species, and can even imitate the sounds of dogs and horses. Moreover, when other birds are present, they will make different calls than when they are alone, and they will also make different warning calls when facing different intruders (such as eagles and monitor lizards).

However, versatility is only one side of their story. In Australia, the black-backed magpie is notorious - when the breeding season comes, the black-backed magpie will become extremely aggressive, like an invincible "gangster".

Stepping out of the ruthless process | Donald Hobern / Wikimedia Commons

The black-backed magpie has a strong sense of territory. When a human is only a few dozen meters away from the nest, the male bird will attack, make a warning sound and swoop down to peck at the human's face and eyes. In Australia, there are news reports of people being blinded by black-backed magpies every year, and several unfortunate victims have even died from their attacks.

A victim of an eye attack | New York Post

What's even more terrifying is that black-backed magpies have excellent memories and can recognize up to 30 people's faces - this is the average number of people living near their territory. Moreover, they are very vindictive and often chase the same person to beat him - the next time this person comes, they will beat him again, stare at him and beat him! An Australian researcher left the territory of a black-backed magpie 15 years ago, but when he set foot in it again, he was beaten to a pulp again.

Black-backed magpies even classify people and selectively attack them. If many people pass through a bird's territory at the same time, they tend to attack boys around 10 years old, because such children are most likely to throw rocks and sticks at the birds and chase them screaming.

The bullies are out, and cyclists can only run away | Top: Cycling Weekly; Bottom: Lifehacker Australia

With its strong aggressiveness and smart brain, the black-backed magpie has become a feared "bully" with high intelligence, and has successfully occupied the streets and alleys of Australia, becoming a neighbor that the locals love and hate. As for the researchers, their six months of hard work went down the drain, but they accidentally discovered an unprecedented animal behavior, and eventually published a paper in the journal Australian Field Ornithology, which was a blessing in disguise - after all, they were lucky not to be chased and beaten by the black-backed magpie.

Girl, the avatar is me, are you not satisfied? | Sardaka / Wikimedia Commons

References

[1]Australia's Clever Birds Did Not Consent to This Science Experiment - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

[2]Australian Magpies Gymnorhina tibicen cooperate to remove tracking devices | Crampton | Australian Field Ornithology (birdlife.org.au)

[3]How magpies outwitted researchers in Australia | NOVA | PBS

[4]Australian Magpies | Beauty of Birds

[5]Australian Magpie - Facts, Diet, Habitat & Pictures on Animalia.bio

Author: Cat Tun

Editor: Mai Mai

This article comes from the Species Calendar, welcome to forward

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