CARTA: Domestication and Human Evolution – Kazuo Okanoya: Domestication and Vocal Behavior in Finches

Kazuo Okanoya (Univ of Tokyo) describes his research with Bengalese finches, a domesticated strain of wild white-rumped munias that were imported from China to Japan 250 years ago. He shows that evolution of song complexity involves not only factors related to sexual selection and species identification, but also to socio-emotional factors due to domestication. He then speculates that language evolution in humans might also be based on sexual selection and self-domestication. Series: "CARTA - Center for Academic Research and Training in Anthropogeny" [Science] [Show ID: 28901]