Some Ornamental Feathers Act Like Whiskers

Scientists were puzzled to learn in a new study that some birds had the ability to use their ornamental feathers in very much the same ways cats used their whiskers. In other words, the winged creatures can sense their surroundings using a type of feathers that biologists thought to simply play a role in mate attraction and other similar rituals until now. The research focused on auklets because both the males and females of the species had prominent crests of feathers adorning the front side of their skulls.

This captured the curiosity of two ornithologists, who were keen on discovering why this was so. Memorial University in St John’s Professor Ian Jones, and University of British Columbia (UBC) researcher Dr. Sampath Seneviratne took it upon themselves to investigate how the feathers were being used, and to determine whether they could have purposes additional to the ones the biologists already knew. The team set up an experiment in which it placed the birds inside a maze built in the laboratory. Auklets breed in dark cervices inside rocks, where their eyes don't contribute too much to help them move.

The researchers constructed no lights inside the maze, but were able to observe the birds as they moved around in the darkness. They were surprised to learn that auklets that had the largest plumes of ornamental feathers on their heads hit obstacles far lesser than birds with smaller plumes. This seems to indicate that the auklets have the ability to use their crests as sensory devices, in the very same way cats and dogs use whiskers. Birds with shorter plumes hit 250 percent more obstacles than their peers with more feathers, so the correlation is not only a statistical artifact.

The finding is terribly interesting because there are many more bird species out there that carry ornamental crests, tail feathers, beards or whiskers, and researchers hypothesize that all of these types of feathers could in fact be used to sense surroundings. The team believes that this may be especially true for birds that live in dark, complex, or crowded environments, where steering clear of obstacles, or other individuals, is very important. Details of the new investigation appear in the latest issue of the scientific journal Animal Behavior, PhysOrg reports.