Last Friday, "The Hunger Games 3: Mockingbirds (Part 2)" was released in Chinese mainland. As the plot progresses, each character has changed from beginning to end and has also received a perfect ending. But while watching the film, a question also arises - what kind of bird is the mockingbird? In this regard, the Beijing Morning Post reporter exclusively interviewed Liu Xinchen, chief engineer of Beijing Wildlife Park and expert of the Beijing Wildlife Conservation Association and the Expert Committee of the Beijing Bird Love Association, and interpreted the possibility of the existence of mocking birds and the development of laughing birds.
Interpretation of Mockingbirds
What kind of bird is the Mockingbird?
What kind of bird is the Mockingbird? In this regard, Liu Xinchen, chief engineer of Beijing Wild Animal Park and expert of the Expert Committee of The Beijing Wildlife Conservation Association and beijing Bird Love Association, said that from the poster of "Hunger Games 3: Mockingbird (Part 2)" and the pictures of the mockingbird in the movie, the mockingbird is actually a "hybrid bird".
"Judging from the image, the part of the head of the mocking bird is the head of the laughing kingfisher, while its tail and wings are the same as the tail and wings of the mockingbird, and the shape of the other abdominal feathers of its body is basically not much different from that of the mockingbird. Therefore, the mockingbird can be judged graphically to be composed of two kinds of birds, the laughing kingfisher and the mockingbird. Liu Xinchen said.
Can mockery birds really exist?
Thinking along the lines of thought, as long as the kingfisher and the mockingbird are mated, can we see the mockingbird? In this regard, Liu Xinchen gave a negative answer. First of all, the kingfisher is a bird distributed in Australia, and its call resembles human laughter; the mockingbird is a relatively large group of birds, distributed from Europe to Asia, belonging to the thrush family. In nature, these two birds live in Australia and the other in Eurasia, separated by 18,000 miles, and it is difficult to meet, let alone fall in love.
So under captive conditions, is it possible for two birds to mate? Still not. Because the laughing kingfisher belongs to the Buddhist monk order, and the mockingbird is a finch-shaped order, the distance between the two different orders is equivalent to the relationship between an elephant and a mouse. Therefore, even captive breeding is impossible for elephants to mate with mice.
How to create a mockingbird?
So does it seem that the mockingbird really can't exist? Not necessarily. Liu Xinchen told reporters that it can be solved through genetic engineering technology. "For example, gene elimination technology, transgenic technology, these are genetic engineering techniques, through this technology is theoretically possible." But to create this bird, what kind of genes to implant, how much to implant, there is no measurement. Liu Xinchen said that because of the natural hybridization conditions, the genes of the father and the mother account for 50% each, but when doing genetic engineering, 1, 10, or even 100 can be implanted as genes, and how many as genes are feasible. Therefore, it is theoretically possible to cross-hand over mockingbirds. "But in real life, no one has yet crossed the bird, so we can't tell how much the kingfisher gene is in the mockingbird and how much the mockingbird gene is in the mockingbird." Therefore, at present, it seems that mocking birds can only be a literary creation and idea. ”
Deciphering birds with strange calls
Is it the bird that "laughs" or the human being that learns to "call"?
When will humans laugh? And soon. "The emergence of humans can now be traced back about 4 to 5 million years, specific to when human language was produced, when facial expressions appeared, and when laughter appeared, and there is no accurate time given by anthropologists, but one thing is certain, it will not be earlier than 5 million years ago." Liu Xinchen said, "So, on the other hand, the cries of the laughing kingfishers, in the end, after the birth of humans or before the birth of humans?" "Judging from the evolutionary history of the laughing kingfisher, it should have been born earlier than humans.
Liu Xinchen said that the production of a species takes at least 2 million years, and the kingfisher is a relatively old species, it is longer than the formation and evolution history of humans, so the "laughter" of the kingfisher is actually much earlier than the laughter of people, and humans are actually a very young species.
After figuring out the problem of time, another problem arises, we already know that the species of laughing kingfisher was produced earlier than humans, so it can be inferred that when the laughing kingfisher can laugh, people will not laugh. So could it be that humans learned the cries of laughing kingfishers to express their happy and cheerful emotions? "No one can say it clearly, and no one can say that this kind of thing is impossible." Liu Xinchen said.
Many birds in nature "laugh"
There are many birds in nature that "laugh", and their calls are like the laughter of humans. Laughing gulls, for example, call like the laughter of old people, while birds of the owl-shaped order, such as the long-eared owl commonly known as the "night owl", emit a sinister "laugh" sound similar to that of humans at night.
But there are still some birds in nature that can laugh, they are not born to laugh, but will "laugh" after people can laugh, which is a bird that is good at imitation. For example, parrots, wrens, weaving birds, and even crows, etc., they will imitate human laughter, and on the basis of imitating laughter, they also actively imitate human language, the sounds of other birds, and the sounds of other objects.
Many birds in nature don't just "laugh"
If you think that there are only birds in nature that "laugh", you are very wrong. There are many birds in nature that are also very distinctive. For example, the cat bird, whose call is like a meow cat's call, is distributed in the Americas, Australia and other places; the big cuckoo we are familiar with will make a "cuckoo cuckoo" sound, and the four cuckoos living in Beijing are similar to saying "single sticks are bitter".
"There is also an interesting legend about the four-sounded cuckoo." Liu Xinchen introduced, "According to legend, there is a child in the mountains named Guo Gong, who has no parents since he was a child. Due to the poverty of his family, Guo Gong could not marry his daughter-in-law, and his life was very difficult. Later, he died and turned into a bird, and this bird flew in the air and called "bare sticks are so bitter.". Later, people called this bird (four-voiced cuckoo) Guo Gong. ”
Liu Xinchen said that in nature, birds are very diverse from call to behavior, and this diversity reflects the diversity of species, which also reflects the diversity of heredity, and the diversity of heredity leads to the diversity of the environment, and there is biological diversity. "Therefore, we protect nature is to protect biodiversity, with biodiversity we will have such a wonderful sound, such a good looking behavior, will have such a good literary creation material, only to have today's mockingbird, otherwise how can you think of such a mockingbird?" 」
They're called very special
Cat birds
The origin of the name: it comes from its piercing call like a cat's bark.
Habit characteristics: Cat bird is a national protected wild animal, also known as cat sound bird, cat magpie. Cat birds make cat calls when they are angry or sad, and like imitating birds, cat birds can imitate the calls of other birds. The cat bird is about 23 cm long and has a slate grey color.
Distribution: North America, Australia, Mexico, Papua New Guinea and a few South Asian island nations.
Laughing gulls
Origin of the name: It is named after the laughter of the old man "hahaha".
Habit characteristics: adult birds blackhead, red beak, gray wing, white body during the breeding period; black head feathers disappear in the non-breeding period, black beak, white head.
Distribution: Breeds in the northeastern, eastern and southern parts of North America in spring and summer, as well as on the coasts of northern South America; in autumn and winter, the northernmost laughing gull migrates south.
Trumpet bird
Origin of the name: the sound is loud and resembles a trumpet.
Habit characteristics: the body shape is like a stork but the mouth is like a chicken, the neck is S-shaped curved, and the body feathers are mostly black with flashes. It inhabits trees or the ground at the edge of the forest and runs quickly.
Distribution: The grey-winged trumpeter is the most widely distributed in northern South America, with both the white-winged hornbird and the green-winged hornbird produced in Brazil.
Mockingbird (pictured is grey cat mockingbird)
Origin of the name: Mockingbird is a collective name for several imitative songbirds of the family Finches, with a total of 36 species in 12 genera.
Habits: The mockingbird is 23 to 25 cm long, has a small beak and tail, and its feathers are gray-brown. It is 27 cm long and has dark wings and tail colours and white spots.
Distribution: Native to the Western Hemisphere, distributed throughout the United States to all of Brazil, it has been introduced to Hawaii.
Umbrella birds
Origin of the name: it has a unique umbrella-shaped crown, and its call is peculiar, some like a bell, some like a cow chirping, some like a hammer, some of which are continuous, and are also known as rappers.
Habit characteristics: There are about 90 species of umbrella birds worldwide. The male unfurled his crown to cover his head as he showed off, while making a rumbling noise. The body is black, 38 to 50 cm long, and spends most of his life in the canopy.
Distribution: Tropical forests of the Americas.
kookaburra
Origin of the name: Kingfisher family, named after its barking sound like laughter.
Habits: The kingfisher is a fish-eating bird of the kingfisher family, with a length of 42-46 cm, which is the largest of the kingfisher family. The kingfisher has grey-brown feathers and is a woodland resident bird.
Distribution: Eastern Australia, Tasmania and other places, is one of Australia's iconic birds.
Blackhead Minebird
The origin of the name: there are many different sounds, from beautiful music to harsh noises.
Habit characteristics: a member of the honey-sucking bird family, like to suck nectar, for noisy social animals, brave and aggressive, dare to expel a much larger offender.
Distribution: It is one of the most common birds in eastern Australia, but has been replaced by the yellow-throated orebird in central and western Australia.
This edition is written by Beijing Morning Post reporter Xun Mi