Hate finding bugs in your home? Then you have something in common with Mexican house sparrows. Plagued by mites and other parasites, birds sometimes incorporate insect-repelling plant matter into their nests. However, Mexican researcher Monserrat Suárez-Rodríguez noticed that birds in Mexico City were making use of something unusual -- cellulose fibers from the filters of smoked cigarette butts. These adaptable animals have aquired a new behavior that makes use of a ubiquitous man-made material with bug-repelling qualities. Tests indeed show that birds preferred nests that contained the nicotine-saturated fibers, and such nests had fewer insect pests. |
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How exactly did the birds figure out how to adopt this new meme? Did a few smart sparrows notice the advantage when accidentally incorporating the material into nests? Birds are excellent observers, and experience with the Blue Tit's ability to open milk bottles shows a newly learned behavior can propagate quickly in bird populations. Alternately, perhaps the sparrows simply are adept at recognizing insect-repelling materials. Either way, the birds appear to prefer the smell of tobacco butts to the presence of bugs. |
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