In a new study from the Honeyguide Research Project, we are excited to present evidence that honeyguides occasionally guide humans to non-bee animals. Our research – which builds on centuries of reports by a wide variety of human cultures across Africa – shows how the behaviour of honeyguides when guiding humans to wild bees’ nests, is spatially and acoustically similar to when honeyguides guide humans to other kinds of animal. In Niassa Special Reserve, where this research was conducted, we find this to be a rare behaviour (occurring on around 1% of honey-hunting interactions). We suggest that the most likely explanation for such behaviour is not as punishment for not previously rewarding the birds with beeswax, nor as a form of altruistic warning behaviour, but rather, due to cognitive mistakes in the birds’ spatial recall.

Our new study quantifies what honeyguides contribute to honey-hunters in the Reserva Especial do Niassa in northern Moçambique. In collaboration with Celestino Dauda, Horácio Murico, Colleen Begg, Keith Begg and Agostinho Jorge of the Niassa Carnivore Project, we found that honey-hunters sell an average of 37 litres of honey annually, and 75% of wild honey is harvested with the help honeyguides. The total economic value of honeyguides to the local economy was ~$40,700 in 2023. We discuss that protecting miombo woodlands is essential to preserve this unique human-bird partnership and its cultural and social value.