E23. Across sub-Saharan Africa, wild birds and people work together to find honey. No taming, no breeding, no domestication… just a partnership thousands of years in the making. Behavioral ecologist Dr. Jessica van der Wal, FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology, joins Scott to unpack what's actually happening when a honey hunter calls and a greater honeyguide answers.

In this episode you'll hear about:

  • What each side gets out of one of the only known mutualisms between humans and a wild animal, and why this bird in particular evolved to seek us out
  • The remarkable signal the honeyguide uses to communicate with people, and what playback experiments revealed when researchers tested it across very different communities
  • What happens to a partnership built over generations when one side starts buying honey at the store


All audio, video, and images in this episode are either original to Okay, But... Birds (© Okay Media, LLC) or used under license/permission from the respective rights holders. Bird media from the Macaulay Library is used courtesy of the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as follows:

  • Greater Honeyguide audio contributed by Jennifer F. M. Horne, ML55972


Additional media courtesy of Dr. Claire Spottiswoode and Dr. Jessica van der Wal

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