Darwin's fast-evolving finches use a natural insect repellent

The medium tree finch is critically

endangered (Image: Image Broker/Rex)
Mosquitoes and parasitic flies can be as
deadly for birds as they can for
humans. Stowaway mosquitoes brought
on tourist planes pose a deadly threat
to the iconic birds on the Galapagos
Islands. But the innovative birds
Darwins finches have worked out a way
to fight them.
The birds are plagued by mosquitoes
that may carry disease and by the
parasitic fly Philornis downsi, whose
blood-sucking larvae can kill entire
clutches of young finches. The parasitic
fly lays its eggs at the base of a finch
nest. Once the larvae emerge, they
suck the blood of nestlings.

There is often 100 per cent mortality in nests, says Charlotte Causton of the Charles Darwin
Foundation in Puerto Ayora in the Galapagos Islands.
During field work on the islands Sabine Tebbich of the University of Austria in Vienna and her team
noticed something unusual. Birds from four species of Darwins finches were picking leaves from a
Galapagos guava tree, Psidium galapageium, and rubbing them into their feathers.
Tebbichs team has found that the leaves repel mosquitoes and inhibit the growth of the bloodthirsty
parasitic larvae. They presented the findings this month at the Behaviour 2015 meeting in Cairns,
Australia, but did not want to comment until the study was published.
Early birds
Other birds and animals around the world also rub their feathers or fur with plants to protect
themselves from insects and parasites, but actual observations of this behaviour in birds are often
anecdotal, Causton says.
This is the first time that Darwins finches or any other species of Galapagos songbird have been
reported conducting this kind of behaviour, she says.
It is great that these birds are able to cope with a parasite by an innovation, as we want to keep
them around, says Louis Lefebvre of McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Two of the finch species
in the Galapagos the mangrove finch and the medium tree finch are critically endangered.
The adaptation of the finches to many different niches, which would normally be filled by other
birds, helped inspire Charles Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection. And they already have
a reputation for being innovative. They show a lot of behaviours that passerine birds dont typically
show, says Andrew Hendry of McGill University.

For example, vampire finches have figured out a way to supplement their diet with a gruesome ironrich treat: drops of blood from seabirds, especially boobies. The avian vampires peck at the skin
around the base of their victims feathers until they can draw and slurp the blood with their beaks.
They also break the eggs of boobies by kicking at them and pushing them over a cliff.
Another species, the woodpecker finch, uses twigs or cactus spines to extract arthropods from tree
holes. This puts it into elite club of tool-using birds, which includes the likes of crows and ravens.
Only some species and some individuals within particular populations tend to engage in such
behaviours, says Hendry.
Harsh environment
Innovativeness might have helped finches survive on the isolated islands, where they were probably
blown by strong winds. They were taken away from a lot of their typical foods and put into an
environment with other foods in which conditions were often very harsh, Hendry says. They were not
able to get enough food so they probably were driven to attempt things that were not typical.
Lefebvre says the ancestors of the finches must have been innovative too; otherwise they would not

have survived when they arrived. Many birds that are brought to a new environment fail to survive,
Lefebvre says. Innovativeness in itself allowed the ancestor to be able to make it to the Galapagos
Islands and not go extinct.
Hendry thinks that even now, an estimated 2 to 5 million years since their arrival, the harsh
environment of the Galapagos is still forcing the finches to use a diversity of resources in clever
ways. They are in an environment that probably favours innovation and novelty and just general
intelligence, he says.
Its not yet clear if the insect repellent is a recently developed response to the parasite or something
the birds have done for a long time, Hendry says. The parasite was introduced in the Galapagos in
the 1960s and its negative impact on finches was first noticed in the 1990s.
That would be a really rapid and novel evolutionary response to a new selective pressure that was
brought about by humans, Hendry says. That would be pretty darn cool.
By Agata Blaszczak-Boxe
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28103-darwins-fast-evolving-finches-use-a-natura-insect-repellent/