Say Hello to the Junco (Intro/Trailer)
Biology
Introducing a bird called Junco
Say hello to the junco. A bird that at first glance does not seem all too glamorous. Even to dedicated bird watchers. But for scientists interested in evolution and animal behavior, the junco is a rockstar. For nearly a hundred years, juncos have been the subject of groundbreaking scientific research. Junko has taught us a lot about ourselves. For example, how hormones like testosterone influence social behaviors. People are more like birds than we would ever have guessed.
The same bird that can be found in your backyard. Inhabits some of the most isolated and remote habitats on the continent. We went around the world, you wouldn't expect all people to look like when you go around the country, you don't find at all Jungkook. Lookalike. From the Appalachian Mountains of Virginia, to the black hills of South Dakota. And Wyoming's grand tetons. To the highlands of Guatemala, the mountains of Baja. And a remote island nearly 200 miles off the western coast of Mexico. Researchers set out to understand the behavior, physiology, and genetic makeup of a bird that is perhaps one of the world's greatest examples of diversification and rapid evolution. If you want to understand evolution in action, the process of forming new species, then the junco is the bird to study. Evolution is in something that happened a long time ago. It's something that happens every day.
The complexity of the junco can be subtle, but it can be obvious as well. And so you have a whole spectrum of variation from the gross to the subtle. As juncos continue to adapt to modern man and the changing climate around them, they introduce as many questions as answers. So one of the big questions in evolutionary biology is how species are formed. What are the relative roles of natural selection and sexual selection and just random processes? Join an international team of scientists on their quest for knowledge. As they set out to understand the natural world by studying this amazing group of birds. And introduce yourself to the ordinary yet extraordinary junco.