page_title: Arabian babbler
section_title: Behaviour
hierarchical_section_title: Arabian babbler / Behaviour
caption_attribution_description: Arabian Babbler photographed at Al Ain, Abu Dhabi, UAE
context_page_description: The Arabian babbler is a passerine bird until recently placed in the genus Turdoides. It is a communally nesting resident bird of arid scrub in the Middle East which lives together in relatively stable groups with strict orders of rank.
context_section_description: Babblers dance and take baths together, offer each other gifts, clean themselves, and sometimes enter into conflict with each other for the privilege of helping another babbler. They may also feed their counterparts. This peculiar behaviour made them a privileged example for ethological theories concerning altruism among animals.
  Starting in the 1970s, Amotz Zahavi observed the babbler at length, giving rise to his theory of signal and its correlative, the handicap principle. Although babblers were considered particularly altruistic animals, Zahavi reinterpreted their behaviours according to his theory. Thus, Zahavi (1974) theorized that chick feeding by Arabian babbler helpers acts as a signal by the helper to gain social prestige within the group.
caption: Photographed et al. Ain, Abu Dhabi, UAE
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