They observed that birds that hatched during the pandemic, when the campuses became empty and there was less food waste to feed on, had beaks with higher bill length and slimmer structure, similar to the wildland birds. However, after the COVID-19 restrictions were lifted and people started trickling back to campus and food waste became ample. Birds born during this period reflected this shift, exhibiting shorter, thicker beaks typical of urban juncos.

The Study: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2520996122

[–] scytale@piefed.zip 22 points 5 months ago

Wow that is extremely fast. I wonder how many generations was it between changes.

[–] vatlark@lemmy.world 28 points 5 months ago

These where the types of studies I was hoping to see after COVID

[–] simplejack@lemmy.world 23 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is because the government redesigned the bird robots during the pandemic.

[–] ikidd@lemmy.world 4 points 5 months ago

BirdsArentReal

[–] MantisToboggon@lemmy.world 16 points 5 months ago (2 children)

They just got healthier when they weren't eating ourshitty food. Hard to believe.

[–] atomicorange@lemmy.world 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Could be that, or the lack of humans lead to food scarcity for the urban birdies and the wild type were better adapted and thrived more and had more living babies for those couple of generations.

[–] MantisToboggon@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

Fucking weak dick birds! Amiright

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Did they actually become healthier? It sounds like their beak shapes just changed to adapt to what they needed to eat

[–] TheBat@lemmy.world 5 points 5 months ago

Preggo birdies were eating healthy and hatched strong kids.

Source: I made it up