Natural History Wanderings

The New York Times reported

Superb starlings help care for the offspring of birds they are not related to. “To me, that sounds like friendship,” one scientist said.

Scientists have long known that social animals usually put blood relatives first. But for a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers crunched two decades of field data to show that unrelated members of a superb starling flock often help each other raise chicks, trading assistance to one another over years in a behavior that was not previously known.

Read more at These Beautiful Birds Form Something Like Lasting Friendships