At first they confused his song with the whisper of the windbut science was amazed to discover that it was the against the tenor of the birds: a hummingbird with a unique sound that lives in the wastelands of Ecuador.
Commonly known as Ecuadorian Little Starthis kind of 14 centimeters tall It has the highest pitch among birds.
The Oreotrochilus chimborazo sings with a fundamental frequency of 13.4 kilohertz (kHz) and reaches notes of up to 16 kHzaccording to a study published in the magazine Science Advances en 2022.
The rest of the birds emit vocalizations that generally range from 2 a 8kHz.
«The fundamental frequency is important because it shows us the frequency at which the syrinx vibrates, which is the equivalent of our larynx, which produces sound,» explains Fernanda Duque, an Ecuadorian neuroscientist at Georgia State University, in the United States, and author of the article.
Still amazed by her discovery after five years of workthis scientist points out that some hummingbirds emit vocalizations that reach 8 kHz.
«But it is rare to hear a song that is exclusively for above ten and this is why these vocalizations are important,» he explains.
At great heights
Furthermore, the Ecuadorian Starlet is the only hummingbird that It can live at 5,200 meters high.
This type of birds brave the extreme cold of the Ecuadorian paramos, a vital ecosystem that acts like a sponge that retains water.
The country has some 130 varieties of hummingbirds, 40% of the 300 registered in America, the only continent where they live.
The males of the species Oreotrochilus chimborazo emit a song so loud that it can surpass the sound what does the wind do when it hits against the grassland and chuquiragua plants, their favorite food.
Carlos Rodríguez, 35 years old and who studies the evolution of bird song at the University of Texas, United States, identified the song of this species of hummingbird.
Together with his wife, Fernanda Duque, they carried out the study that determined the unique characteristics of this animal.
«I heard this vocalization, but then it didn’t even occur to me that it could have been a bird’s song. To me, it sounded like the whisper of the wind in the grassland,» recalls the Ecuadorian scientist. Incredulous, he even thought it could be the buzzing of an insect. «But I began to see that whenever I heard that I saw the hummingbird«says Rodríguez.
When the Little Star sings «it sounds like a whisper, like a ‘sssss’ and in reality among the sounds that we are used to hearing, whispers are those that have higher frequencies, louder than whistles«, dice.
With age, people lose the ability to hear the song of against tenor of the hummingbird, explains Rodríguez.
The hummingbird lives in the Chakana nature reserve, on the slopes of the Ecuadorian volcano Antisana (50 km southeast of Quito), one of the places where the study was carried out.
In that habitat, Efraín Cepeda, an official of the Jocotoco Conservation Foundation, use a speaker with a recording of the song to attract the Little Ecuadorian Star.
It is a work of patience until one of the birds clings to the chuquiragua plant with its legs.
Then, the spectacle of nature opens: the hummingbird sings its song, Its neck widens and the feathers on its head move as if forming a wave that changes color for iridescence.
The Ecuadorian Little Star has a colored hood that goes between purple and blue, depending on the angle of the light. Those colors and the song are its attraction.
«This song exists with that function of communicating in specific social contexts that are territorial defense and courtship«explains Duque, who noticed that the males sang it while they remained suspended compared to females.
The researcher also identified that males and females of Oreotrochilus chimborazo live in different territories and that only males perform this songwhich is more complex than other vocalizations that the species can make.
These birds also use it to defend your space. «They tend to have aggressive behaviors. They start looking for where the sound is coming from with things like moving their head, stretching their body and starting to get closer to the source of the sound. Some attack the speaker,» he says.
AFP Agency.
GML
