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Ultraviolet cues affect the foraging behaviour of blue tits
journal contribution
posted on 1998-08-22, 00:00 authored by S Church, Andy Bennett, I Cuthill, J PartridgeThe function of avian ultraviolet (UV) vision is only just beginning to be understood. One plausible hypothesis is that UV vision enhances the foraging ability of birds. To test this, we carried out behavioural experiments using wild-caught blue tits foraging for cabbage moth and winter moth caterpillars on natural and artificial backgrounds. The light environment in our experiments was manipulated using either UV-blocking or UV-transmitting filters. We found that the blue tits tended to find the first prey item (out of four) more quickly when UV cues were present. This suggests that UV vision offers benefits to birds when searching for cryptic prey despite the prey and backgrounds reflecting relatively little UV Although there was no direct effect of UV on the time taken to find all four prey items in a trial, search performance in the absence of UV wavelengths tended to increase over the course of an experiment. This may reflect changes in the search tactics of the birds. To our knowledge, these are the first data to suggest that birds use UV cues to detect cryptic insect prey and have implications for our understanding of protective coloration.
History
Journal
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London series B-biological sciencesVolume
265Issue
1405Pagination
1509 - 1514Publisher
The Royal Society PublishingLocation
London, EnglandISSN
0962-8452eISSN
1471-2954Language
engPublication classification
C1.1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalCopyright notice
1998, The Royal SocietyUsage metrics
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