BIRDS have more sophisticated sex lives than we thought. For the first time, some birds have been shown to use smell to identify their partners. And others are likely to dump their mates for being bad parents.
Birds are thought to identify each other by sight and sound. But Francesco Bonadonna at the National Centre for Scientific Research in Montpellier, France, and his colleagues have found that a small Antarctic seabird called a prion (Pachyptila desolata), locates its partner using smell. The researchers presented 20 birds with a choice of scent-laced cotton bags giving off the strong musky odour of…
