Table 3.
Song recordings for the four South African starling species and their song characteristics: temporal features (durations in seconds, mean ± SD); proportions of discontinuous songs (DS) and continuous songs (CS).
| O. morio | O. nabouroup | L. nitens | S. bicolor | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of individuals | 45 | 9 | 30 | 16 | ||
| Total time of analyzed song (min) | 6000 | 41 | 184 | 70 | ||
| Total number of motifs analyzed | 4500 | 1021 | 11±000 | 206 | ||
| DS and CS song proportion (%) | DS | DS | DC | DS | CS | CS |
| 100 | 16.54 | 83.46 | 5.43 | 94.57 | 100 | |
| Motif duration | 0.76±0.23 | 0.15±0.001 | 0.3±0 | 0.32±0.06 | 0.29±0.04 | 0.17±0 |
| Phrase duration | 0.76±0.23 | 0.15±0.001 | 1.79±0.56 | 0.7±0 | 2.91±4.29 | 3.19±2.07 |
| Number of motifs per sequence | 1±0 | 1±0 | 5.67±1.91 | 2±0 | 6.92±3.12 | 11.78±7.89 |
| Duration between motifs | >1 | >1 | 0.08±0.04 | 0±0 | 0.2±0.04 | 0.13±0.03 |
| Duration between sequences | 8.96±4.58 | 2.99±1.49 | 7.19±3.68 | 4.07±4 | 2.28±1.20 | 2.06±0.8 |