title: Tap dancing birds: the multimodal mutual courtship display of males and females in a socially monogamous songbird.
abstract: According to classical sexual selection theory, complex multimodal courtship displays have evolved in males through female choice. While it is well-known that socially monogamous songbird males sing to attract females, we report here the first example of a multimodal dance display that is not a uniquely male trait in these birds. In the blue-capped cordon-bleu (Uraeginthus cyanocephalus), a socially monogamous songbird, both sexes perform courtship displays that are characterised by singing and simultaneous visual displays. By recording these displays with a high-speed video camera, we discovered that in addition to bobbing, their visual courtship display includes quite rapid step-dancing, which is assumed to produce vibrations and/or presumably non-vocal sounds. Dance performances did not differ between sexes but varied among individuals. Both male and female cordon-bleus intensified their dance performances when their mate was on the same perch. The multimodal (acoustic, visual, tactile) and multicomponent (vocal and non-vocal sounds) courtship display observed was a combination of several motor behaviours (singing, bobbing, stepping). The fact that both sexes of this socially monogamous songbird perform such a complex courtship display is a novel finding and suggests that the evolution of multimodal courtship display as an intersexual communication should be considered.
authors.affiliation: Biosystems Science Course, The Graduate School of Life Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 10 Nishi 8 Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0810, Japan.
authors.forename: Nao
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ota
authors.affiliation: Department of Behavioural Neurobiology, Max Planck Institute for Ornithology, Eberhard-Gwinner-Str. 82319 Seewiesen, Germany.
authors.forename: Manfred
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gahr
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Hokkaido University, Kita 10 Nishi 8 Kita-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0810, Japan.
authors.forename: Masayo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Soma
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D003380:Courtship; D005260:Female; D046369:Finches / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D008954:Models, Biological; D012726:Sexual Behavior, Animal / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D020308:Songbirds / Q000502:physiology*; D014743:Videotape Recording / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods; D014828:Vocalization, Animal / Q000502:physiology