(1) In the first, a female paradise whydah mates with a male indigobird (whether by choice or coercion), then lays an egg in a nest of her usual host, Melba Finch.(2) Her daughter, genetically an indigobird, imprinted on her Melba Finch foster parents and then mated with a male paradise whydah mimicking Melba Finch song.(3) In Africa, for instance, there are birds called widows and whydahs , many of which have tails longer than a foot.(4) In particular, female indigobirds might prefer males with long tails like those of male paradise whydahs , perhaps because they retain an ancestral sensory bias.(5) This higher-level sequencing convention results in some strange and eye-catching placements, such as the kinglets between bulbuls and leafbirds, or the vireos between whydahs and fringillids.
