Birds Hiss Like Snakes to Protect Nests

Eurasian blue tit. Francis C. Franklin, via Wikimedia Commons. Distributed under a CC-BY-SA-3.0 license.

Certain cavity-nesting birds emit a surprising hiss-like vocalization to deter predators and repel competitors from trying to occupy the same nesting cavity. It’s been hypothesized that that this hiss mimics a snake hiss – but is it a case of mimicry or evidence of widespread fear of hisses?

Read my latest Animal Minds post: Birds Hiss Like Snakes to Protect Nests.