DOI: 10.5061/dryad.79cnp5j5p
title: Data and video from: The mating ritual of a rainforest tinamou, Tinamus major

description: The mating systems of many rainforest birds remain poorly understood,
 especially those that elude observation in dense forest understories. Here
 we documented mating behaviors in a pair of Great Tinamous, Tinamus major
 (Tinamidae), a secretive species with a wide distribution across the
 lowland Central and South American tropics. Despite anecdotal
 preconceptions that males court females, we observed predominant courtship
 displays from the putative female tinamou. In this mating ritual recorded
 in the birds’ natural habitat, only the putative female vocalized in the
 form of clucking and soft-rolling songs, and courted the putative male
 with a suite of courtship displays, such as neck-elongation, tail-raising,
 crouching, and feather-fluffing. In contrast, the putative male watched
 while standing still, approached, tail-raised, walked away, and mounted
 the putative female a few times. The clucking song of the putative female
 had not been described previously but we repeatedly observed this song
 type immediately before the soft-rolling songs during the courtship
 interaction. Clucking was of lower frequency and around ten times shorter
 than the soft-rolling songs. The clucking and soft-rolling songs sung by
 the putative female were of lower frequency than the common morning
 territorial songs recorded in the vicinity. This behavioral auditory
 analysis of the mysterious mating ritual of rainforest tinamous reveals
 the previous underappreciated female bias in avian courtship displays.
 This observation raises the appreciation of the diversity of sex roles and
 mating systems.   
description: The song analysis was extracted from our field video recording
 (attached), or from Xeno Canto with RavenPro. A single researcher Yinger
 Guo conducted the song analysis.
description: # Data and video about Courtship behavior of a secretive forest tinamou,
 Tinamus major
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.79cnp5j5p](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.79cnp5j5p) ## Description of the data and file structure #### File: Tinamou\_Mating\_Video.mp4.zip **Description:** a video recording of Tinamou courtship interactions The two CSV files below are respectively the recordings of the putative female during courtship interactions (Tinamus.major_Mating_SongUnits.Putative.Female.csv) versus the regular morning advertisement songs by males or both sexes (Panama_Units.csv). All the song analyses were extracted from the recordings in Gamboa, Panama. Tinamus.major_Mating_SongUnits.Putative.Female.csv is based on acoustic extractions from the mp4 video. Please see the associated article for details.  #### File: Tinamus.major\_Mating\_SongUnits.Putative.Female.csv **Description:** This is RavenPro analysis of spectrograms of Tinamus major songs from putative males and females.  ##### Variables * SongSeries: The ID for each bout of songs.  * Units#: The sequence ID for each song unit within each song series  * Selection#: selection ID for each spectral analysis throughout the recording * BeginTime_s: The beginning time of the selection * EndTime_s: The ending time of the selection * LowFreq_Hz: The lowest frequency of the selection * HighFreq_Hz: The lowest frequency of the selection * DeltaTime_s: The duration of the selection * PeakFreq_Hz: The maximum frequency * PeakTime_s: The time at which peak amplitude occurred * BW90%_s: Bandwidth 90%, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * Energy: Energy, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * MaxEntropy: Maximum Entropy, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * MinEntropy: Minimum Entropy, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * PFC_Avg_Slope: Mean of the Peak Frequency Contour Slope, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * SEL: "Sound Exposure Level (dB) is the log10 integral, over time, of sound pressure relative to a reference pressure", please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * MaxAmp: maximum amplitude, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * SongTypes: types of songs, short mating songs (clucking) versus long mating songs (soft songs) by the putative female * Bout.ID: the ID of each singing bout #### File: Panama\_Units.csv **Description:** This file contains the RavenPro measurement of Tinamus major song recorded in Panama.  ##### Variables * SongID: song ID from XenoCanto * Species: species name * Day: day at which the recording was made * Month: month at which the recording was made * Year: year at which the recording was made * Latitude: the latitude of the location at which the recording was made * Longitude: the longitude of the location at which the recording was made * Elevation: elevation of the location at which the recording was made, unit =meters * TimeRecorded: time at which the recording was made, AM, hour:minutes.  * SongSeries: the ID of the song series * Units#: the ID of the unit within the song series * Selection#: the ID of the selections throughout the recording * BeginTime_s: begin time of the selection * EndTime_s: The ending time of the selection * LowFreq_Hz: The lowest frequency of the selection * HighFreq_Hz: The lowest frequency of the selection * DeltaTime_s: The duration of the selection * PeakFreq_Hz: The maximum frequency * PeakTime_s: The time at which peak amplitude occurred * BW90%_s: Bandwidth 90%, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * Energy: Energy, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * MaxEntropy: Maximum Entropy, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * MinEntropy: Minimum Entropy, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * PFC_Avg_Slope: Mean of the Peak Frequency Contour Slope, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * SEL: "Sound Exposure Level (dB) is the log10 integral, over time, of sound pressure relative to a reference pressure", please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * MaxAmp: maximum amplitude, please see the RavenPro manual for additional details.  * SongTypes: types of songs, short mating songs (clucking) versus long mating songs (soft songs) by the putative female