Abstract
The male Bengalese finch,Lonchura striata, has two types of song behaviour (directed song, DS and undirected song, US). DS and US share a basically identical syllable repertoire, sequence pattern and tempo, but differ in the time course of appearance during the maturational process. In order to examine whether this results from a difference in testosterone (T) dependency, we studied developmental changes in the fecal T level and the amounts of DS and US during the 2–4 month period (N=7). DS appeared between 83 and 94 days of age, 4–16 days after a rise in the fecal T level. In contrast, US appeared earlier and at high frequency even when T was still at a very low level. These results suggest that DS is more dependent on the T level than US, and is not activated until the T level rises during the maturational process.
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Ikeda, M., Takeuchi, H.A. & Aoki, K. The role of sex steroid in two avian song behaviours differing in ontogenetic process. Experientia 50, 972–974 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01923490
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01923490