Scientists finally realised female robins sing just as well as males

An investigation of the songs of antheral and pistillate European robins adds to increasing grounds that some sexes of songbirds are talented singers

Life 18 October 2022

By Christa Lesté-Lasserre

A pistillate robin

Julie Bosca

Female European robins (Erithacus rubecula) sing passim autumn and wintertime – and their songs are conscionable arsenic physically and mentally challenging arsenic those of males.

Outside the breeding season, erstwhile nutrient and hiding places are scarce, some sexes sing arsenic hard songs to people the limits of their idiosyncratic territories. The uncovering discredits the fashionable content that lone antheral songbirds sing, arsenic good arsenic immoderate assumptions that they would sing amended than females, says Nicole Geberzahn astatine the University of Paris Nanterre successful France.

“One of the motivations down …