{"id":2190283,"date":"2026-03-11T06:00:17","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T05:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2190283"},"modified":"2026-03-06T15:53:28","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T14:53:28","slug":"forget-gender-wars-these-bizarre-birds-have-had-equality-sorted-for-some-44-million-years-watch-them-in-action","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/forget-gender-wars-these-bizarre-birds-have-had-equality-sorted-for-some-44-million-years-watch-them-in-action\/","title":{"rendered":"Forget gender wars! These bizarre birds have had equality sorted for some 44 million years &#8211; watch them in action"},"content":{"rendered":"<hr \/>\n<article id=\"sprylab_purple_content\">\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"purple-inner-container purple-content-body-inner\">\n<p>The strange-looking Picathartes have lived in the\u00a0Congo\u00a0for 44 million years. Bald-headed birds that\u00a0mate for life\u00a0and breed in the rainy season, they build their\u00a0nests out of mud\u00a0on the underside of overhanging rocks on a cliff or cave roof to stay dry. This has also earned them the alternative name of rockfowls.<\/p>\n<p>The ground-loving\u00a0birds\u00a0have intriguing ways of working together and both male and female birds build their\u00a0nests, incubate the eggs and forage for food together.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\"><iframe id=\"166936\" title=\"These Ancient Birds Have Been Around for 44 Million Years | Africa | BBC Earth\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/fTT8Lxjh0Cg?start=21&amp;feature=oembed&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.discoverwildlife.com\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-129157385_7=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-16=\"true\" data-gtm-yt-inspected-21=\"true\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Male and female birds take turns to sit on their eggs over the course of three weeks &#8211; 12 hours on, 12 hours off.<\/p>\n<p>They are accomplished hunters, and will feed on insects and invertebrates from the forest floor and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>In this video\u00a0David Attenborough\u00a0explains how the male bird reaffirms their connection with an alluring display and the duo work together to protect their young,<\/p>\n<p>The birds are marked as vulnerable on the the\u00a0IUCN Red List\u00a0of threatened species, because Picathartes\u2019 habitat is rapidly disappearing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p><i>This <a href=\"https:\/\/www.discoverwildlife.com\/tv\/picathartes-mate-work-together-congo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">article<\/a> by Daisy Bowie-Sell was first published by Discover Wildlife on 26 February 2026. Lead Image: Neil Bowman via Getty.<\/i><\/p>\n<h2>What you can do<\/h2>\n<p>Protect wildlife by making a monthly donation as little as $5.<\/p>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\" defer=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/install-popup-button.js\" id=\"donorbox-popup-button-installer\"> <\/script><a id=\"preview_inline_popup_button\" class=\"dbox-donation-button\" style=\"background: #0dc5dc; color: #ffffff; text-decoration: none; font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; display: flex; gap: 8px; width: fit-content; font-size: 16px; border-radius: 5px; line-height: 24px; padding: 8px 24px;\" href=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/focusing-on-wildlife-needs-your-support?default_interval=m&amp;amount=25\" data-reminder-widget-enabled=\"true\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow external noreferrer\" data-wpel-link=\"external\">PROTECT WILDLIFE<\/a><script type=\"module\" src=\"https:\/\/donorbox.org\/widgets.js\" async><\/script><\/p>\n<p>It only takes a minute!<\/p>\n<hr style=\"border-top: 1px solid white;\" \/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The strange-looking Picathartes have lived in the\u00a0Congo\u00a0for 44 million years. Bald-headed birds that\u00a0mate for life\u00a0and breed in the rainy season, they build their\u00a0nests out of mud\u00a0on the underside of overhanging rocks on a cliff or cave roof to stay dry. This has also earned them the alternative name of rockfowls. The ground-loving\u00a0birds\u00a0have intriguing ways of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1178,"featured_media":2205792,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2026\/02\/Picathartesbirdsgetty-scaled.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6985,5],"tags":[1703,10036,4066,12761,2567],"class_list":["post-2190283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-wildlife","tag-birds","tag-hunters","tag-invertebrates","tag-picathartes","tag-threatened-species"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2190283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190283\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2205792"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2190283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2190283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2190283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}