Baby superb fairywrens start learning whilst still in the egg.

 It was generally thought that the immature brains found within the embryo had limited learning capabilities but we have since learned that even within our own species, prenatal learning and recognition occurs with the baby responding to the mothers voice from around 32-34 weeks.
A study on superb fairywren Malurus cyaneus hatchlings in 2012 demonstrated that chicks that had learnt a specific sound from the mother whilst still in the egg received more food as, the parents knew they were feeding their chicks instead of cuckoo chicks which often target this species.
Building upon this knowledge the same scientific team led by S.Kleindorfer at Flinders University, decided to test if the chicks responded to different sound stimuli whilst inside the egg; they achieved this by using a ipod with a speaker and played recordings of three different types to eggs which were around 9-13 days old. The three sound choices were female superb fairywren incubation calls, contact calls of neighboring winter wrens and the control sound which was white noise. For those readers who may not know, the control within a experiment is basically the unaffected/unchanged group i.e. in this experiment they wanted to see if there was a reaction to specific sounds, by having a sound that theoretically produced no sound that was recognizable to the chicks and was ignored by them but they responded to the other sounds, they could suggest that it must be a response to those sounds and not other external factors.

Whilst the sounds were played the heart rates within the eggs were monitored, this is because a lowered heart rate demonstrates that the embryo was paying attention within the egg. This allowed them to discover that the embryos lowered their heart rates when both the female superb fairywren incubation and winter wren calls were played but not for the white noise, which suggested that they were attempting the learn the differences between the calls of different species compared to that of their own. They also discovered that they also reduced their heart rate in response to a new superb fairywren call that they had not previously heard, suggesting that they can recognize voice characteristics of different individual superb fairywrens. To read the original article click here. To view the published paper click here.

I found this article very intriguing, to think that such advanced recognition capabilities are being discovered in such young embryonic life stages clearly demonstrates that even as we develop within the safety of the womb or egg; nature is still giving us the essential tools we need to survive once we enter the world, as the ability to not only recognize the sounds of those that play a parental role but also those of the same species provides an essential level of protection which the young needs whilst, they develop the tools they need to become a adult and survive on their own maybe, we should revise the saying your never to old to learn to include your never to young either.  

What do you think? Please feel free to leave your comments in the box below.