Many organisms have a keen sense of smell that they rely on
for a number of reasons; whether it be to hunt, communicate, find a mate etc. For
a while though it was thought that birds relied very little on their olfactory
sense. However, more and more evidence is becoming available that disproves
this idea. In a recent test, conducted by Jill Mateo of the University of
Chicago, Humboldt penguins in the Brookfield Zoo demonstrated the ability to
discriminate between familiar, non-related birds and unrelated strangers as well as between
unfamiliar, unrelated birds and unfamiliar kin.
Mateo
hypothesized that scent detection would be a good way to discriminate between
compatible and incompatible, or related mates. In order to test this she took
oily secretion produced by the birds and smeared them inside of different
kennels. The results showed that birds spent six times as long in kennels
containing the scent of familiar, non-related birds compared to unrelated strangers, and the
birds spent more than twice as long inside kennels scented with unfamiliar,
unrelated birds than in kennels smelling of unfamiliar kin.
While
this evidence does not necessarily prove Mateo right, it does demonstrate that
something significant is happening here. Maybe after further testing and
analysis we will see that penguins and possibly other birds do in fact follow
their nose’s and sniff out a mate.
Posted by Michael Thomas
This is a little bit confusing, but it seems you are saying that the birds successfully preferred birds that were familiar to them over birds that were unfamiliar, but that they were unsuccessful in choosing unfamiliar members of their species over unfamiliar individuals of different species- is this correct?
ReplyDeleteIf I have interpreted what you wrote correctly and that is the case, it seems like their sense of smell is definitely not their strongest sense. Perhaps they are simply not a species that has a very strong sense of smell?
It would be interesting to see what the results of this study would be like with a different species that has an extremely sensitive/perceptive sense of smell, such as wolves.
-Johanna Brophy
Hi Michael,
ReplyDeleteThis topic is very interesting. Penguins may have these olfactory genes because they are not technically birds as what the general population would think. This could be why they have a hint of a smelling sense.
They were in the cage longer in the unfamiliar kennel because, were they trying to figure which penguin it was?
Posted by Whitney Huynh
This reminds me of a very interesting quality of the penguin: The ability to distinguish their specific young from amongst thousand of others. It's typical of most animals, the ability to find their young, but it is interesting that penguins may use olfaction to achieve it. As far as I knew, only vultures had particularly developed senses of smell. This opens up a rather interesting direction of research for me.
ReplyDeletePosted by Jacob Lane
Your post ties in nicely to what we are learning in class right now, especially what we learned today about the major histocompatibility complex. It has been show before that many animals have a lot keener sense of smell than we do so it is no surprise that these penguins have the ability to detect the different scents of other penguins. Did the articles state what the goal of this study was? It would be interesting to see how these researchers use this study in future research.
ReplyDeletePosted by James Lin
I have heard of these sort of tests before, but what I find most interesting is that the penguins spent more time (if I understood you correctly) on the other birds that were familiar but un-related. The being disinterested in related penguins makes complete sense since you do not want to breed with a close relative due to genetic side effects. I wonder though why a familiar penguin is better. I would think they would be most interested in one that they have never seen before because that might mean that the penguins are genetically more different and thus will confer fitness. I wonder if this preference comes from the fact that these birds live in close packs (they would know all the other penguins).
ReplyDeletePosted By Caroline Adams
This is an interesting post and made me want to read more. I find it amazing that the olfactory genes in one animal is very different from the other. It seems to me that these penguins secrete a scent from somewhere in their body which could potentially attract a mate. Since humans do not have nearly as strong of scent compared to other animals, do you think that humans can detect pheromones secreted by other humans, and that would affect how the human was attracted to another?
ReplyDeletePosted by Ryan Dulmaine
Thanks for the post Ryan and I thought the same exact thing. I feel that a sense like this could very well exist and we may be unaware of it.
ReplyDeletePosted by Michael Thomas