Musical Pairs: Egg-deploying bird species divide for a song

Musical taste, rather than geography, may have split Africa’s indigobirds into multiple species, and a new analysis gives a genetic underpinning for that idea.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER. The indigobird Vidua raricola now flashes a different underwing feather color from that of its near relatives, but song preference may have divided the species. Sorenson

This scenario puts indigobirds among the few vertebrates for which scientists have strong evidence that species divided without some geographic barrier looming, says Michael D.