Is This The Most Complex Social Structure in the Animal Kingdom? Experts Seem To Think So

See what goes on during the fledging stage with the beautiful white fronted bee eaters at the San Diego Zoo.

Transcript

00:00Pau.

00:14Estamos en frente de la White Fronted Bee Eater Exhibit,

00:16y hoy, nosotros nos prendamos una de ellas de caer de caer

00:19antes que les quedara de su parte.

00:22Se está tierno.

00:24Los otros son un poco más grande.

00:26Más bien.

00:27We got a weight on it to make sure it's got at a healthy weight before fludging.

00:32And then what we do is we ban the bird so that we have an identification on it

00:36because once they do fludge, it can be really difficult to get hands on them.

00:42Once we did that, we also pulled a small blood feather

00:46so that we can send that in for sexing results to know if it's a male or female.

00:57So the white-fronted bee-eaters, their diet consists solely of insects

01:05and the majority of those are honeybees.

01:10When they grab the bees out of midair, they simply take it back to the perch

01:14and they hit the back end of the bee against the perch,

01:18which gets rid of the stinger and the venom sac so that they consume it without any injury to them.

01:27The white-fronted bee-eaters have one of the most complex society groups of all birds.

01:36The chicks from last year actually help their relative breeding pairs

01:43not only incubate the eggs but also to feed the chicks.

01:47And once the chicks do leave the nest and fledge, they will continue to help feed them.

01:53I think white-fronted bee-eaters are so cool and so beautiful and unique

01:57in so many different ways.