Faster than a hummingbird's wings

The pinned instrument of the Club-Winged Manakin.

Birds getting press these days. First the Ivory Billed Woodpecker re-appeared out of musty thin air in Arkansas. And now this.

Scientists have recently unraveled how a certain strain of manakin (a favorite with Darwin who admired their full-on sexual selection measures), makes its music.

Combining the sawing technology of crickets and the attention-getting measures of the male peacock, the Club Winged Manakin shakes its wings so rapidly as to produce tones with a frequency of about 1,400 cycles per second. From the Ecuadorian tree tops that song goes out, calling all females with an ear for musical mates.
It wasn't until one Dr. Bostwick traveled to New York to study the manakin collection at the Museum of Natural History and spent, "a lot of time playing with feathers," that the mystery of the singing wings fell into place.

Past Bush-ian evils and princely deaths, straight to Science Times . Heave a sigh. Nature's still at it.


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