for National Geographic News
For centuries ornithologists denied the importance of birds' sense of smell, looking more to birdsong and flashy plumage as typical means of communication. Now, a new study on the striking-looking crested auklet adds to evidence that smell is as important to birds as to other animals.
Scientists report that the sea bird, found in Alaska's Aleutian islands, produces a strong tangerine-like smell which they link to courtship displays. The research, published in an upcoming edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, reveals for the first time that birds can be attracted to their own scents, and hints at the use of chemical signals for communication.
Fragranced signals could be a "largely unexplored and possibly widespread means of [bird] communication," says the report.
19th-century ornithologist and painter John James Audubon might be partly responsibility for spreading the idea that smell was unimportant, said lead researcher Julie Hagelin, a behavioral biologist at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania.
The results of Audubon's experiment testing whether turkey vultures locate carrion by sight or smell were misinterpreted, she said. The birds flocked upon one deer carcass in the open, but ignored a more decomposed carcass obscured from view. "We now know they use smell to locate food," says Hagelin, "they just prefer fresher carcasses."
The Audubon study began what Hagelin refers to as an "unnatural history" of birdsthe assumption that they can't smell.
However, in the last two decades, research has shown both that most birds have a functional sense of smell, and that they use it, like other vertebrates, to gather information. Studies have shown that Corsican blue tits pack nests with fragrant herbs to ward off parasites, and that sea birds locate nesting sites and dinner items by following their noses.
Social odors, chemical signals used to pass messagessuch as, "I'm ready to mate" or "get out of my territory!"to other individuals of the same species, have been found in fish, reptiles, amphibians, and mammals. Their absence in birds seemed surprising, said Hagelin.
However, several unusual attributes of crested auklets, Aethia cristatella, warranted further investigation. Not only did the birds produce a tangerine-like fragrance from the neck-ruff region, but they also exhibited a behavior associated with this region of the body. "A suspicious link between and odor and a display is the best place to start looking for a chemical signal," said Hagelin
Auklet courtship proceeds with cackling vocalizations, and mutual burying of bills in nape and neck feathers, otherwise known as the "ruff-sniff display," said auklet behavior expert Ian Jones, who is with the Atlantic Cooperative Wildlife Ecology Research Network at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, in St. John's, Canada.
Wild Auklet Chase
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