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Ornithology Lecture 5
More Physiology, the Brain and Senses

Weight for weight, birds eat more food, consume more oxygen, move more rapidly, and generate more heat than any other verterberates
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Last Tuesday:
! Thermoregulation ! Respiratory System ! Circulatory System ! Metabolism ! Feeding and

Today
! Water

Digestion

Economy ! Excretory System ! Senses ! Intelligence

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Water Economy
Loose Water
!! Debilitating water

Drinking

Replace Water
!! Drinking !! Food for most birds !! Metabolic water

loss is a corollary of the high body temp and activity levels

production

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Food

Metabolic water
!! Water produced as a by-

product of the oxidation of organic compounds containing hydrogen most vertebrates

!! Birds produce more than !! Zebra Finches can

survive on on seeds containing 10% water

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Excretory System

Avian Kidneys
! Flat ! Run along the

!! The excretion of excess water and

nitrogenous wastes takes place in the

!! Kidneys !! Intestines !! Salt Secreting Glands (in some birds)

vertebrae ! Exits from ureter to lower intestine where water can be absorbed if needed

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!! Too much water!

Mutes, guano, poo

! Uric acid
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Humming birds

!! Highest rates of

water flux for any endothermic vertebrate

!! At high energy

.5 1 ml of water to excrete 370 ml of nitrogen waste Mammals use 20 ml of water for same amount.

demands 3.3 times body mass is consumed and secreted

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Loops of Henle on the short side

!! Presents a

problem mostly for sea birds levels

!! Regulate salt !! Nasal salt glands !! Special folds of

Salt Gland

the cell lining of the nares have them

!! No passerines

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Senses While we live in the same places, we live in completely different worlds
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!! Vision !! Hearing !! Mechanoreception !! Taste !! Smell !! Magnetic field detection

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Keen Eye Sight

Vision the amazing bird eye

!! Large !! Prominent !! Ostrich has largest

structures

eye of any land vertebrate

!! Starling eye is 15%

!! Eyes vary in shape !! Fill orbits fully !! Capable of limited

of head mass

!! Eagle and owl eyes

are the size of humans

movement

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Eye placement Eye Anatomy

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What We See

Cornea and Lens

!! Both change shape

!! Pupils are all round except for

the gull like skimmers

!! Lens shape varies more in birds than other

vertebrates

!! Parrots have flat interior lens, ducks convex

!! Iris colors vary in birds from the

common dark brown to bright red, white, bright yellow, green (cormorants) or pale blue (gannets)

both front & back, raptors & passerines greater posterior curvature than anterior refractive power same as water

!! Increase cornea curvature, increases the

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Retina
!! Cones color !! 400,000 sqmm

Fovea
!! Concave depressions

Color Vision

house sparrow !! 1 million common buzzard !! 200,000 human

!! Rods - light

of high cone density greatest visual sharpness

!! Cones contain oil drops which range

from yellow to red and act as filters against damaging UV light

!! May also enhance contrast !! birds can see into the near ultraviolet

range

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!! Common starlings

feed young with uv reflective skin more

Hearing
Pine Warbler Ear Important for:
!! Territorial defense !! Mate choice !! Navigation !! Safety

Ultraviolet

!! Redwing(European

thrush) prefers viburnum berries with uv reflection above those that dont
!! Kestrel seeing urine !! Mate selection

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Ear Structure
Sections of ear

Middle Ear

!! External !! Middle !! Inner

!! Only 1 bone

compared to 3 in mammals Stapes connects eardrum to inner ear

!! Protects the inner

ear from pressure damage

!! The shape varries

!! Columella or

with taxon

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Inner Ear

!! Cochlea: fluid

!! Cells monitor

filled, coiled section of inner ear at base of hearing organ

vibrations transmitted by the fluid and encode them into nerve impulses
!! Cells regenerate

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcvod0A8jkY

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Hearing Ability
! Shocker! Most birds do not have

The hearing specifics

! Birds hear best at frequencies

extraordinary hearing by standard measures ! Humans can hear fainter sounds at most frequencies ! Range of good hearing in mammals tends to be wider than birds

between 1 & 5 Kilohertz ! Sensitivity decreases rapidly at both lower and higher frequencies (except owls) ! Pigeons, chickens, & guineafowl hear very low frequencies. Below 20Hz ! Pigeons can hear much fainter sounds (50decibles) in the 1-10 hertz range

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Hearing specifics
! Like humans birds do not hear

Orienting by sound

ultrasonic sounds ! They do have sensitivity to small changes in frequency and intensity but not as good as a human ! Excel at discrimination temporal variations of sound (duration of notes, gaps & rate of amplitude modulation ! Exceptional powers of temporal resolution detect subtle call changes

!! Locate sound

in vertical plane

!! Locate sound

in horizontal plane

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Mechanoreception

Tactile Corpuscles

!! Tactile reception !! Equilibrium !! Detection of barometric pressure

!! Primary sources of

skin sensitivity
!! Monitor chances

in muscle tension
!! Three main kinds

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Touch
!! Herbst corpuscles are most widely

Herbst Corpusals
!! Abundant in the

distributed receptors. Dermis layer of skin, beak, & legs. Herbst corpuscles are also closely associated with facial bristles in many species of birds. and are located in the dermis of the bill

!! Grandry corpuscles occur only in waterfowl !! Merkel cells - Merkel nerve endings are

found in the featherless skin of the beak and legs. In contrast to mammals, Merkel cells here are found exclusively in the dermis, and the avian epidermis does not contain any nerve endings. Merkel cells are mechanoreceptors that respond to pressure applied to the beak or skin .

sensitive bill tips of sandpipers and snipes which use tactile foraging to find small prey in the mud. Also in the tips of wood pecker tongues.

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Organs of equilibrium
! Back to the ear! ! Semicircular

Balance
!! 3 semicircular canals. 1 horizontal 2 vertical. Connected to

cerebrospinal fluid system

!! When head position changes fluid moves through canals !! Sensory hairs are located at the base of the canals which can

canals ! Size of canals related to flight performance

detect movements of small crystals of calcium carbonate floating in the fluid.

!! Spatial variation in the pressure of the crystals on the hair

cells cause different patterns which enable the bird to sense the direction of gravity and of linear and circular acceleration

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Weather is coming

Food and Flavor

!! Very few studies !! Shows birds are about or just slightly less

!! Sensitivity to atmospheric pressure is

believed to be based in a small sense organ called the paratymapnic organ in the middle ear reserves long before a storm arrives

sensitive to taste than mammals with respect to some flavors

!! Few taste buds are located on the rear

!! Birds will feed actively to build up

tongue and on the floor of the pharynx

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!! About 24 in the

Taste buds

chicken

Smell
!! Used for finding

!! 37 in the pigeon !! 62 in Japanese

quail

!! Humans have

food to orientation reject food plants by smell we thought by looking at the brain

roughly 100,000 sweet, sour, salt and bitter

!! Goslings learn to

!! Limited # taste

!! Much better than

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! Tube nose seabirds

detect zooplankton eating phytoplankton ! Find their nest burrows and mates ! Even passerines under specific criteria have a sense of smell as good as a rat ! Kiwis probe soil with beaks to find earthworms by sniffing

Bird perfume

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What else does the brain do?

Functional lateralization
Left Hemisphere
!! Dominant !! Controls complex integration

Right Hemisphere
!! Monitors the environment !! Selects stimuli for further

and learning
!! Suppress sexual and attack

processing
!! The right can take over for the

behavior
!! Bird song

left if the left is damaged

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Spatial memory
Hippocampus
Similar to mammals Corvidae: crows, ravens, jays, nuthcrackers Sittiade: nuthatches Paridae: titmice, chickadees

Titmice
!! May stock 50,000 seeds from one

Questions?

spruce tree and recover them as many as 28 days later

!! Crows, jays and nutcrackers are

diligent hoarders

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