The Modeling Of Avian Visual Perception Predicts Behavioural Rejection Responses To Foreign Egg Colours

Main Category: Biology / Biochemistry
Also Included In: Veterinary
Article Date: 02 Jul 2008 - 4:00 PDT

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How do birds tell the colours of their own and foreign eggs apart? We evaluate a model of avian physiological visual acuity to determine its accuracy as a predictor of song thrush Turdus philomelos discriminating artificial eggs and rejecting them from her clutch.

We show that the large degree of variation of egg coloration between clutches (compared with variation within a clutch) should provide sufficient contrasts for rejecting experimental conspecific parasitism.

Importantly, our results suggest that just two of the light sensitive cones (ultraviolet and short-wavelength) are the most important for eliciting egg rejection decisions in song thrush.

Royal Society journal Biology Letters

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