"Tangerine Ruff ’n’ Sniff: new clue to bird social behaviour." The Royal Society Science News/Press release, 14 May 2003
"Although odours are a common form of communication in every other vertebrate animal, the possible use of scent to convey social information is an exciting addition to the study of avian behaviour."
The basic assumption is that vision and hearing are the main senses that birds use to signal each other, e.g. the colour of plumage; the sound of birdsong. This is questioned by new experimental evidence observed in the Crested Auklet, an arctic seabird.
The citrusy smell of Crested Auklet feathers only occurs during the breeding season. Research showed that the birds were repeatedly drawn to the scent of natural feathers and to the chemical components that make up the auklet’s characteristic odour. The seasonal "ruff-sniff" display, may perhaps act as a useful mechanism to obtain odour information about a potential mate.
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Crested Auklets from St. Paul Island, in the Alaskan Pribiloffs. Photo by
Philip Witt
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About N. Sivasothi
Sivasothi is lecturing Biodiversity, Ecology, Structure and Function, Marine Biology and Animal Behaviour with the Department of Biological Sciences.
His interests include otters, mangroves, museum databases, coastal ecology, tree-climbing crabs and conservation of biodiversity.
He is also the national coordinator of the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore and Toddycats! Volunteers of the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research, NUS.