The Zebra finch

The zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata castanotis is a social bird species, which lives in large flocks up to several hundred individuals in Australia throughout the whole year (Zann 1996). This social group living provides opportunities for zebra finches to observe each other during mate choice. Thus, the zebra finch is a good model species for studying mate-choice copying.

The zebra finch is a socially monogamous bird, both, males (top-picture, right) and females (top-picture, left) engage in brood care.

Males build ball-shaped nests in which females lay four to six eggs. Males and females then breed for about 12 days. They feed hatchlings for about 21 days in the nest, and another 10 days after they have left the nest (bottom-picture). They feed on seeds and insects.

We use F8-generation descendants of wild zebra finches from Australia. This is one of a few Australian zebra finch populations (not domesticated) in Europe.