I used to think lyrebirds were just showing off.
But here’s the thing—when you’re standing in a eucalyptus forest in southeastern Australia, listening to what sounds like a car alarm mixed with a kookaburra’s laugh, and you realize it’s all coming from one bird, you start to reconsider. The superb lyrebird, Menura novaehollandiae, possesses what researchers call the most sophisticated vocal apparatus in the avian world, a syrinx so complex it can reproduce frequencies across a range that would make most songbirds weep. They don’t just mimic sounds; they reconstruct them with unsettling accuracy, down to the mechanical whir of a camera shutter or the two-stroke engine growl of a chainsaw cutting through timber. I’ve listened to recordings where ornithologists couldn’t distinguish the bird’s imitation from the actual machine. It’s not magic—it’s anatomy meeting desperation, evolutionary pressure colliding with the Anthropocene in ways that feel almost absurd.
The Syrinx That Shouldn’t Be Possible (But Definitely Is)
Most birds have a syrinx positioned where the trachea splits into bronchi. Lyrebirds have that, plus something extra.
Their syrinx contains three pairs of muscles instead of the usual one or two, and the membranes vibrate independently, which means a single lyrebird can produce two distinct sounds simultaneously—think of it as biological stereo. When researcher Anastasia Dalziell analyzed their vocalizations at the Australian National University, she found they could modulate pitch, timber, and rhythm with a precision that rivals human beatboxers. They’re not just copying sounds; they’re sampling them, storing them, and then remixing them into elaborate acoustic performances that can last up to 20 minutes. The male’s courtship display involves roughly 80 percent mimicry, stitched together with his own lyrebird-specific calls. Honestly, it’s exhausting just to describe.
Why Chainsaws and Camera Shutters Ended Up in the Repertoire (Wait—Maybe It’s Not What You Think)
The viral videos showing lyrebirds mimicking chainsaws are real, but they’re also misleading.
Most lyrebirds live nowhere near active logging sites—they’re shy, ground-dwelling birds that prefer dense undergrowth and old-growth forests. So where did Chook, the famous lyrebird at Adelaide Zoo, learn to imitate construction sounds? From humans, yes, but specifically from the 1960s and 70s, when his territory overlapped with park maintenance crews. He learned those sounds as a juvenile, and he’s been performing them for decades, passing them down to younger males who now mimic his mimicry. It’s like an acoustic game of telephone, except nobody’s correcting the mistakes. Turns out, lyrebirds don’t just copy sounds they hear frequently—they copy sounds that are acoustically interesting, sounds with sharp transients, complex harmonics, mechanical rhythms. A chainsaw has all three. A camera shutter? Same deal. They’re sonically rich, which makes them irresistible to a bird whose entire reproductive strategy depends on auditory novelty.
The Evolutionary Logic Behind Mimicking Things That Want to Kill You
Here’s where it gets weird.
Female lyrebirds don’t just choose mates based on plumage or dance moves—they choose based on acoustic diversity. A male who can mimic 20 species is good; a male who can mimic 40 is better. The hypothesis, supported by research from Dalziell and colleagues, is that vocal complexity signals cognitive fitness, memory capacity, and environmental experience. A bird who’s lived long enough to hear that many sounds has survived predators, disease, and competition. He’s a good bet. But in the last 150 years, the soundscape has changed radically. Logging, tourism, urban encroachment—suddenly the forest is full of novel, high-contrast sounds. And lyrebirds, being the opportunistic vocal kleptomaniacs they are, started sampling them. It’s not adaptation in the traditional sense; it’s more like accidental cultural evolution, where the birds are just doing what they’ve always done, but the inputs have gone haywire. I guess it makes sense, in a bleak, late-capitalist kind of way.
