Puffin beak12/29/2023 ![]() ![]() The scientists weren’t sure if exposing the birds’ eyes to ultraviolet light would be harmful and decided not to risk finding out. Dunning invited him to collaborate, and the two put together a team to take a closer look at the phenomenon-this time, on the bills of living puffins.įirst, the researchers had to guarantee the puffins’ safety. Tony Diamond, a biologist in Canada, reached out to Dunning and said he had observed the same phenomenon back in 2010. He shared the results on Twitter, and then circulated a write-up among fellow scientists. So in 2018, on a slow day in his former lab at the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, Dunning, now an environmental consultant, put a puffin specimen (which had died recently of natural causes) under a black light. “That big, beautiful, colorful ornament seemed like a good place to start,” he says. The Atlantic Puffin and its flashy bill stood out as a possible contender. Though it wasn’t the focus of his research, Dunning was always curious about how other species use those extra wavelengths of light. And female Budgerigars, little green parakeets native to Australia, prefer males with elaborate, UV-reactive plumage. For example, songbirds like Blue Jays or Wood Thrushes have ultraviolet feathers that indicate gender. Scientists are just beginning to understand how birds make use of this visual superpower, and many suspect it plays a role in mating rituals. Many bird species have UV adornments that are invisible to us. While our retinas have three kinds of photoreceptors, called cones, to pick up red, green, and blue wavelengths of light, bird retinas have four, letting them see red, green, blue, and ultraviolet light. As he knew, all birds live in a world of color humans can barely imagine. The discovery could help us see puffins as they see themselves-and force us to reexamine our assumptions about how birds and other animals experience the world and each other.įor Jamie Dunning, lead author of new research on puffin beak luminescence published in the journal Bird Study, shining an ultraviolent light on a puffin beak seemed like a natural thing to do. That’s because if you shine ultraviolet light on a puffin in breeding plumage, streaks on its beak glow a bright cyan-green color. Now, scientists have discovered that there is more to this display of affection than meets the human eye. Sometimes, a crowd of bobbing puffins will form around the pair, egging them on. When one Atlantic Puffin approaches another, the two birds bow their heads and rub their candy-corn bills together while rapidly shaking their faces back and forth. ![]() In puffin courtship, making a good impression is all about the beak.
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