A Parliament of BABBLERS! The Altruistic Sentinels

A lesson in selflessness and cooperation - Dr Rahmani gives us a brief look into the surprising world of the Babblers.

- DR ASAD RAHMANI

"Why do we always find one bird sitting on top of a bush", asked my former student, Mohammad Shobrak of Saudi Arabia. I explained to him that when the flock of Arabian Babblers feed, there is one member that sits on top of a small tree or a large bush, looking for predators. It is called a sentinel. If a predator is detected, it warns other members of the flock to hide before hiding itself. Once a flock member has eaten enough, it replaces the sentinel.

This way everyone benefits. My article concerns a group of birds that no one gives much attention to the Babblers. There are hundreds of species known as babblers in Asia and Africa, but I will restrict myself to the Turdoides species of babblers.

The genus Turdoides contains 19 species, seven found in India. Two species, the White-throated Babbler (Turdoides gularis) is found in Myanmar and may occur in some bordering Indian areas, while Spiny Babbler (Turdoides nipalensis) is endemic to Nepal.

Turdoides belongs to a large family, Leiotrichidae, that includes cutias, minlas, laughing thrushes, leiothrix, fulvettas, babblers, babaxes, liocichlas, mesias, and sibias. More than 100 years ago, some of the babbler species discussed in this article, were placed under genus Argya but later shifted to Turdoides. Recently, based on genetic studies, Alice Cibios and her colleague suggested, in 2018, the taxonomic revision of laughing thrush and allies.

Their study found that both the genera Turdoides and Argya were derived from more than one common evolutionary group and therefore should be separated. Common, Large Grey and Striated babblers were moved to genus Argya.