Good Hygiene Counts In Wild
BY NATALIE ANGIER Northern flickers have a poor division of domestic labor. Among these tawny, 30-centimeter woodpeckers with downcurving bills, the male flickers are more industrious housekeepers than their mates, according to a new report on their sanitation habits in the journal Animal Behavior . Researchers already knew that flickers, like many woodpeckers are a sex role reversed species. The fathers spend more time incubating the eggs and feeding the young than do the mothers. Now scientists have found that the males’ parental zeal also extends to nest hygiene: when a chick makes waste, Dad is the one who usually picks up the unwanted presentation and disposes of it far from home. “It takes away microbes, removes smells that might alert predators, and makes the whole nest much cleaner,” said Elizabeth Gow, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia and an author on the new report. “It’s an important aspect of parental care that we often forget about.” ...