There are two fundamentally incredible things here, one is the physical equipment that had to evolve in this creature's vocal membranes and respiratory system, and second the neural processing and nerve control interface for the membranes for this level of control and playback. You could also add the auditory eidetic memory systems at work here. Utterly fascinating, creatures like this have elements of neural processing that we share but we rarely share the precision in specific domains, humans are usually more of a generalist being sort of good at lots of things while these creatures are masters beyond compare in one domain.
Yes. I look at birds such as the one in the video and then consider that there may not be such a quantum leap between it, archaeopteryx and some of the more reptilian or should I say dinosaurs with plumage that they have discovered as fossils in China in more recent times and some of the dinosaurs such as the velociraptors. They seem to have discovered that the possession of vivid iridescent colouring and feathering are both likely to go much further back than we at first thought and so it begs the question, how far back do those Lyre bird characteristics go? The Lyre bird as a species goes back at least 15 million years and is a “living fossil”. Ready for Jurassic World, anybody? It’s just being released ( June 6th ).
