this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2025
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Yes, you can store data on a bird — enthusiast converts PNG to bird-shaped waveform, teaches young starling to recall file at up to 2MB/s (www.tomshardware.com)
submitted 1 week ago by gedaliyah@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
153 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

A music and science lover has revealed that some birds can store and retrieve digital data. Specifically, he converted a PNG sketch of a bird into an audio waveform, then tried to embed it in the song memory of a young starling, ready for later retrieval as an image. Benn Jordan made a video of this feat, sharing it on YouTube, and according to his calculations, the bird-based data transfer system could be capable of around 2 MB/s data speeds.

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[–] Goretantath@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (2 children)

So a moving target of data you cant reliably recall and might get shot by someone looking for food. At least its neat though.

[–] brsrklf@jlai.lu 8 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Average weight for a starling is less than 100g. The whole thing with head and feathers and bones and whatever. You'd have to be very hungry to hunt that. And I suspect if you shoot at it you'd pulverize it completely.

Though cats are going to be a problem.

[–] nyan@lemmy.cafe 3 points 1 week ago

There will be a lot of cases where the data gets accidentally encapsulated (then fragmented due to incompatible protocols) in a cat.

[–] AstralPath@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 week ago

Who on earth is gonna shoot a starling for food?

Have you seen starlings? They can fit in the palm of your hand.