In a new paper in Ostrich: Journal of African Ornithology, Dr Gabriel Jamie, Dr Samuel Jones, Emidio Sumbane and Merlijn Jocque present the results of a three-week expedition to three poorly-known mountains in northern Mozambique: the Njesi Plateau, Mount Chitagal and Mount Sanga. These mountains had received little to no previous biological surveys, but are the only known locality of the endangered Mozambique Forest-warbler Artisornis sousae (formerly Long-billed Tailorbird A. moreaui sousae). During the survey, the authors found healthy populations of the tailorbirds on all three mountains along with two new species for Mozambique. They also recorded several range extensions of both conservation and biogeographical importance including a new population of the highly localised Dapple-throat (Aracanator orostruthus). Overall, they find that the birdlife of the Njesi highlands are more biogeographically linked to Tanzania, than to mountains farther south in Mozambique and Malawi. Their results illustrate the critical value of even small Afromontane forests on remote highlands for some of Africa’s least known, and most threatened avifauna.
New paper on imperfect egg mimicry
Our paper “Combined measures of mimetic fidelity explain imperfect mimicry in a brood parasite-host system” has just been published in the journal Biology Letters. This study was led by Tanmay Dixit, and carried out together with Gary Choi, Salem al-Mosleh, Jess Lund, Jolyon Troscianko, Collins Moya, L Mahadevan, and Claire Spottiswoode, as part of a collaboration between our group and Prof. Mahadevan and his lab at Harvard University. Together we combined mathematical tools and field experiments in Zambia to quantify a key difference – “squiggle” markings – between the eggs of hosts (tawny-flanked prinias) and parasites (cuckoo finches). We showed that suboptimal behaviour on the part of prinias allows cuckoo finches to get by with an imperfect copy of prinia eggs.