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Chemoreception in Seabirds

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Behavior of Marine Animals

Abstract

In a world rich in odors, only the birds as a major group have been generally regarded as insensitive or oblivious to such stimuli—even, in Wood Jones’s (1937a) phrase, as emancipated from olfactory dominance. Yet olfaction is one of the three great modalities for distance communication, functioning as effectively in an aerial habitat as in terrestrial or aquatic habitats. Perhaps our own diminished sensitivity to external chemical messages and our inability to sustain an aerial existence have influenced our opinions about olfactory functioning in birds. Notably, however, we feel no such hesitation in the case of flying insects, which are readily accepted as being critically guided by odor signals. In contrast, taste seems to present less of a problem. Birds, like most other creatures, must ingest food through the mouth, and nothing seems more reasonable than that this food would be selected partly on the basis of taste.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology and Brain Research Institute, UCLA School of Medicine, Los Angeles, California, 90024, USA

    Bernice M. Wenzel

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  1. Bernice M. Wenzel
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

    Joanna Burger

  2. National Marine Fisheries Service, Highlands, New Jersey, USA

    Bori L. Olla

  3. University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island, USA

    Howard E. Winn

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© 1980 Plenum Press, New York

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Wenzel, B.M. (1980). Chemoreception in Seabirds. In: Burger, J., Olla, B.L., Winn, H.E. (eds) Behavior of Marine Animals. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2988-6_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-2988-6_2

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