New study shows that birds form bonds that look a lot like friendship

[erronis]

https://phys.org/news/2025-05-birds-bonds-lot-friendship.html

The fact that humans who are not related by blood help each other repeatedly over time is demonstrably true—think of the ongoing mutual support that sustains your longest-running friendships.

But the idea that such interactions occur in the animal kingdom has been difficult to prove.

A new study of African starlings led by Alexis Earl, a former Ph.D. student in the lab of Professor Dustin Rubenstein, and colleagues, draws on data gathered over 20 years and proves exactly that: The starlings demonstrate "reciprocity," helping each other with the expectation that the favor will eventually be returned.

The study is published in the journal Nature.

"Starling societies are not just simple families, they're much more complex, containing a mixture of related and unrelated individuals that live together, much in the way that humans do," Rubenstein said.

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