Individuality in nest building: do southern masked weaver (Ploceus velatus) males vary in their nest-building behaviour?

We currently have little understanding of how birds know what nest to build and what little we do know has been gained largely from investigations of the completed structures (morphology of finished nests) or of material selection. Here we looked at the behaviours performed by male Southern Masked weaverbirds when building their nests. During the two earliest phases of construction individual males varied in the direction in which they carried and inserted grass into their developing nest, the speed at which they completed phases of nest construction and in the frequency with which they dropped grass during weaving.

Repeatability of nest morphology in African weaver birds.

It is generally assumed that birds build nests according to a genetic 'template', little influenced by learning or memory. One way to confirm the role of genetics in nest building is to assess the repeatability of nest morphology with repeated nest attempts. Solitary weaver birds, which build multiple nests in a single breeding season, are a useful group with which to do this.

Setting tool use within the context of animal construction behaviour.

Tool use and manufacture are given prominence by their rarity and suggested relation to human lineage. Here, we question the view that tool use is rare because cognitive abilities act as an evolutionary constraint and suggest that tools are actually seldom very useful compared with anatomical adaptations. Furthermore, we argue that focussing on animal tool use primarily in terms of human evolution can lead to important insights regarding the ecological and cognitive abilities of non-human tool users being overlooked.

Do chimpanzees build comfortable nests?

Nests built by wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes verus) were studied at the Fongoli research site in southeastern Senegal from January 2004-May 2004 to investigate the role of comfort in nest building behavior by relating measures of nest comfort and building effort. Nest comfort across zones of the nest surface were compared with construction effort for 25 nests. Several variables of nest comfort were assessed: (1) physical discomfort, (2) visible discomfort, and (3) softness.