Dr. Erich Jarvis

And then jumping many years later, I started to dig down into these brain circuits to discover that these brain circuits have parallel functions with the brain circuits for humans, even though they're by a different name like Broca's and laryngeal motor cortex.

And most recently we discovered not only the actual circuitry and the connectivity are similar,

but the underlying genes that are expressed in these brain regions in a specialized way different from the rest of the brain are also similar between humans and songbirds and parrots.

So all the way down to the genes and now we're finding the specific mutations

are also similar, not always identical, but similar, which indicates remarkable convergence for a so-called complex behavior in species separated by 300 million years from a common ancestor.

And not only that, we are discovering that mutations in these genes that cause speech deficits in humans, like in FOXP2, if you put those same mutations or similar type of deficits in these vocal learning birds, you get similar deficits.

So convergence of the behavior is associated with similar genetic disorders of the behavior.

Do hummingbirds sing or do they hum?

Hummingbirds hum with their wings and sing with their syrinx.

In a coordinated way?

In a coordinated way.

There's some species of hummingbirds that actually will, Doug Ashworth showed this, that will flap their wings and create a slapping sound with their wings

that's in unison with their song.

And you would not know it, but it sounds like a particular syllable in their songs, even though it's their wings and their voice at the same time.

Hummingbirds are clapping to their song.

Clapping, they're snapping their wings together in unison with a song to make it like, if I'm going...

You know, I banged on the table, except they make it almost sound like their voice with their wings.

What's amazing about hummingbirds, and I'm going to say vocal learning species in general, is that for whatever reason, they seem to evolve multiple complex traits.

You know, this idea that the evolving language, spoken language in particular, comes along with a set of specializations.

That is true, yes.