Snake-like hissing calls made by nestlings of the open nesting zitting cisticola Cisticola juncidis

Abstract

Mimicry is widespread in the animal kingdom, with sound/or acoustic mimicry remaining less studied than visual mimicry. Some incubating female birds in cavity nests emit a hissing call when encountering nest predators, which sounds like a snake hiss and serves to scare off predators; this is considered a form of acoustic Batesian mimicry. Similarly, for nearly defenseless bird nestlings, using a hissing call to scare off predators can improve their survival; however, few studies have reported nestlings making hissing calls. In this study, we report on the hissing calls of nestlings of the open-nesting zitting cisticola (Cisticola juncidis) and compare their hissing calls with those of other animals, such as birds and snakes. The results showed that the hissing calls of C. juncidis nestlings closely approximate the sounds of snakes. This study is the first report of sounds that mimic snakes made by the nestlings of any open-nesting passerine bird species.

KEY WORDS:

• hissing call
• nest predation
• vocal mimicry 
• Cisticola juncidis
• nestling

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Francesco Dessì-Fulgheri, Karol Zub and Indrikis Krams for their constructive comments on an early version of our manuscript. Cheryl Tipp at the British Library, National Sound Archive UK helped us enormously with the electronic transfer of C.R. Barlow field recordings stored at the NSA to China. In the search for information on hissing behaviour by zitting cisticolas in Africa and Europe and other birds, C.R. Barlow thanks Lamin Sanyang for assistance in the field, and the following for an assortment of responses: Keith Bensusan, Peter Castell, Imad Cherkaoui, Stavros Christiloides, Jon Dries, Tony Fulford, Jonah Gula, Diego Gil, Nigel Harcourt-Brown, Alex Kerschel, Hiemo Mikkola, Peter Mundy, Jemima Parry-Jones, Bram Piot, Ian Riddell, Angela Turner, Don Turner and Arnoud Vandenburg. Pat Sellar contributed equipment to C.R. Barlow and enabled the depository resource at NSA, UK.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Ethical standard

The experiments comply with the current laws of The Gambia and China. Fieldwork at Mile 2, Banjul, The Gambia, was performed with help from a member of staff from the Department of Parks and Wildlife Management.

Author contribution

C.R. Barlow recorded the hissing calls of zitting cisticola nestlings in the field and curated the recordings. C. Xia performed the call and data analysis in the lab. J. Liu. wrote the draft of the manuscript and W. Liang edited and improved the manuscript. All authors approved the final submission.

Supplemental data

Supplemental Data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/03949370.2023.2213206

Additional information

Funding

W. Liang was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (no. 32270526) and by the Innovation Platform for Academicians of Hainan Province, China. C.R. Barlow was self-funded for his own field work.