What bird leads humans to honey?
Short answerTrue
The greater honeyguide, Indicator indicator, a drab starling-sized bird found across much of sub-Saharan Africa. It locates wild bees' nests it cannot open, leads people to them with a distinctive call and a stop-start flight, and feeds on the wax and brood left behind after the nest is cut open.
Why the partnership exists
Each side has exactly what the other lacks. The bird can find nests and cannot open them: a wild colony inside a tree cavity is beyond a small bird with no way through the wood and no defence against thousands of stings. People can open nests, with an axe and smoke, and are much worse at finding them. Following a guiding bird measurably shortens search time and raises the rate of successful finds.
The bird is also one of very few vertebrates able to digest beeswax, which means almost nothing competes with it for the reward.
What it is not
Sources
- Honeyguides and honey gatherers: interspecific communication in a symbiotic relationship — Science (1989) · Peer-reviewed article
- Reciprocal signaling in honeyguide-human mutualism — Science (2016) · Peer-reviewed article
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