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Re: If you had a time machine...



On Thu, Oct 1st, 2009 at 10:17 AM, Rob Taylor <rjtaylor68@comcast.net> wrote:

> Thanks to Dann and Tommy, I can confirm that it was indeed the honey guide 
> bird I was thinking of, and most likely the honey badger was the lucky 
> beneficiary in the documentary in question. Since they were kind enough to 
> lead me to my quarry (ample footage available on youtube), I'll leave behind 
> a couple of URLs. Hopefully this will ensure a continued mutually beneficial 
> relationship!
> 
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t_vXWgoWdc
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVtSYRmlirg&NR=1

When honey guides employ humans, it can be a truely cooperative affair. The 
human knows the 
honey guide's intentions, and the honey guides seem to have little fear of the 
human in question. 
Other footage I've seen of them guiding humans involved an African man planting 
his spear butt-
first into the ground with an offering of honeycomb impaled on the tip as a 
reward, which the bird 
had no qualms about feeding on.

In the first lot of footage above, it seemed like the bird was luring the honey 
badger as potential 
prey, rather than the badger recognising it specifically as a way of obtaining 
honey. If that was the 
case, then the bird was actually taking advantage of the honey badger's 
relentless predatory 
behaviour, essentially tricking it into finding the bee hive.

It would seem these little volant dinosaurs can use different tactics depending 
on the species they 
employ.

-- 
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Dann Pigdon
GIS / Archaeologist                Australian Dinosaurs
Melbourne, Australia               http://home.alphalink.com.au/~dannj
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