I don’t know if you’ve read this report already, but it says that the best male zebra singers are more intelligent and more likely to get the girls of the colony.  Apparently, the more complicated the song of the zebra, the more complicated its brain’s neuron connections are, and in the language of mutation, that’s a good thing.  It looks like the tendency of all species is to evolve into a more intelligent form, such that survival and adaptation skills become easy.

What could this mean to our hobby?  For ages, breeders have been pairing birds to produce color variations.  This is specially true for gouldians and zebras, of which we usually ignore the quality of the male’s song.  For canaries however, it is usual that the juvenile will get its song from other canaries, primarily the father.  Some canaries are therefore bred because of the duration and quality of their songs.  It is therefore easier to choose to breed better singers in canaries, as studies have proven that they are actually more intelligent than the rest. 

 Here’s an excerpt from that report:

Why do females of some avian species choose suitors with the most elaborate courtship songs?

Simple: Fancy singers have more elaborate brain structures (to learn singing and other life skills), brains that the females hope their offspring will inherit.

Reports linking sexual selection on the basis of song and the “heritability” of bigger brain structures in three different bird species – European sedge warblers, cowbirds and zebra finches – were published this year by Cornell scientists.

While the Cornell scientists hesitate to extend their avian neuroscience discoveries to the evolution and amorous affairs of homo sapiens, the leader of the studies says it helps to think in human motivational terms.

“An elaborate bird song is like a Grand Cherokee in the driveway or an M.D. after the name – a kind of shorthand for all the desirable qualities that a female wants in a mate and wants passed along to the children,” said Timoth DeVoogd, professor of psychology and neurobiology and behavior at Cornell. “Of course these birds are not scholars of evolutionary theory. They don’t think Darwin’s principle of sexual selection when they make up their minds about which male sings best.

“Nevertheless, their choices will have an immediate impact on the success of their parenting and, in a longer-term, evolutionary sense, on the success and survivability of their kin for generations to come.”

So, when are you going to start breeding those singers?