Biologists made an amazing discovery about pigeons

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Биологи сделали удивительное открытие о голубяхScientists found out why the pigeons use the noise of the wings

The pigeons were able to communicate the sound of wings: specialized feathers create acoustic oscillations, signals danger right at the moment a hasty takeoff.

Living in arid areas of Australia, crested pigeons Ocyphaps lophotes are quite close relatives of our PPE and able to understand each other “without words”, in response to the clapping of the wings of the neighbors taking off in danger. This was reported in an article by Trevor Murray (Trevor Murray) and his colleagues from the Australian national University, published in the journal Current Biology.

It should say that “nonverbal” communication is quite common in the animal Kingdom. They are all in motion produce sounds that may be useful to someone who knows how to understand them. Some birds, such as goldcrests South American-backed manakins, using the noise of their wings during mating rituals. However, to call it a complete communication such as bird songs yet no one dared. The work of Murray and his co-authors studied the crested pigeons, can change that.

These birds have 10 main tail feathers on each wing. Researchers found that eighth – and third pen, if you count from the tip of the wing, is different from the rest. It is longer and has an unusual shape, and in 2009 it was suggested that it makes a major contribution to the creation of high – and low-frequency sounds characteristic of flapping wings fast flying birds.

Australian researchers used high-speed filming and were recording by experimenting with pigeons, including deprived of certain feathers on the wings. This allowed to show that the eighth flight feather creates a sound when the motion of the wing breaks down the air with its tip, and forces it to oscillate with high frequency. The pen is closer to the base of a wing can amplify the tone, and the pen closer to the end of the wing to create another, lower sound.

With the rapid rise of birds these tones alternate with increasing frequency. Scientists have demonstrated that such sounds do other pigeons are perceived as a danger signal, including when playing audio without a demonstration of the bird producing these cottons. The presence of high-frequency sounds from the eighth of the pen was the key: their hearing, the birds immediately took off.

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