Melopsittacus undulatus

Mystery Birds: Budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus

grrlscientist — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 08:59:46 +0000

Mystery Birds: Budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus

tags: Budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, birds, mystery bird, bird ID quiz

~~[Mystery birds]~~ Budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, photographed in Boulia Shire, far west Queensland, Australia [I will identify these birds for you in 48 hours]

Image: Ann Britton [larger view].

Please name at least one field mark that supports your identification.

News story:

This year's floods along river systems such as the Diamantina and Georgina sparked prolific breeding by the budgies which have been feasting on an abundance of grass seeds.

"I have been here since 1983 and never seen anything like it," Boulia grazier Ann Britton said. "The skies are thick with budgies -- how they do not collide with each other is a miracle in itself."

Review all mystery birds to date.

grrlscientist Sat, 10/31/2009 - 04:59

easy one here, budgies!... long-tailed predominantly green and yellow bird (as opposed to the many captive-bred colors) with black scalloped markings on the wings and shoulders

Flooding along the Diamantina and Georgina rivers has incraesed grasses, the seeds of which have allowed budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) to proloiferate

"What next? Now it's budgie storms in Queensland flood areas", Courier Mail (Australia), October 27, 2009

No, they're unripe bananas. It's a little known fact that just before they're ripe, their wings fall off. They're then caught by Queenslanders who bend them into the right shape before export.

That something so improbably perfect could exist is used by philosophers as the definitive proof of the existence of Ray Comfort.

hmmm, a touch of Pharyngulitis there Bob?

It is true though that there is a genetic link between Giardia psittaci, a common parasite of budgerigars, and 50-page introductions to host organisms such as the Origin (musaceae endocarp being a likely vector) with a similarity between the signs of retarded growth, dehydration, and diarrhoea in budgie chicks and the result of getting past ther first page of Comfort's creationist twaddle...

It's a flock wild of budgies with that flashing of green and yellow. You should of done something harder like a flock of 'tiels or galahs.

Wild budgies, camouflaged for yellow & green vegetation.

Why Do We Yawn?

grrlscientist — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 16:46:08 +0000

Why Do We Yawn?

tags: yawning, thermoregulation, budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus, animal behavior

Yawning human, Homo sapiens serving as a perch for a domestic budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus.

Image: Wendy (Creative Commons License).

Yawning. Everybody does it. In fact, I am yawning now as I write this piece. Yawning is interpreted to have a variety of meanings, ranging from tiredness to boredom. Perhaps more interesting is the fact that yawning is contagious among humans, at least: watching someone else yawn, seeing a photograph or reading about -- and even the mere thought of -- yawning is enough to induce this behavior in observers. (Tell me: have you yawned yet?) Even though yawning is very common, the physiological and evolutionary reasons for yawning behavior are poorly understood.

Yawning is a familiar behavior characterized by a large gaping of the mouth, accompanied by a deep inhalation of air, followed a shorter expiration. This behavior is under involuntary control, so it cannot be consciously controlled or suppressed. Further, yawning is a stereotyped behavior expressed by all classes of animals, and is correlated by a variety of neurochemical changes in the brain. Previous research suggests that yawning is a biological mechanism in humans and non-human apes, such as chimpanzees, to keep the brain from overheating.

"Brains are like computers," reports Andrew Gallup, a researcher in the Department of Biology at Binghamton University who led the study. "They operate most efficiently when cool, and physical adaptations have evolved to allow maximum cooling of the brain."

This is known as the "radiator hypothesis" or the "brain-cooling hypothesis," which can be tested.

"Based on the brain-cooling hypothesis, we suggest that there should be a thermal window in which yawning should occur," Gallup proposed. "For instance, yawning should not occur when ambient temperatures exceed body temperature, as taking a deep inhalation of warm air would be counterproductive. In addition, yawning when it is extremely cold may be maladaptive, as this may send unusually cold air to the brain, which may produce a thermal shock."

To test this hypothesis, Gallup and his colleagues, Michael Miller and Anne Clark, studied yawning in wild budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus. They chose budgerigars because they have relatively large brains for their body size, they live wild in arid regions of Australia that are subject to frequent and dramatic temperature changes, and -- most important for their experimental design, where they tested the birds in small groups -- budgerigars do not experience contagious or sympathetic yawning, as humans and some other animals do.

To do this work, the researchers divided the small parrots into groups of four, placed them into a wire cage and filmed them while they were subjected to changes in the ambient temperature from 22 to 38 degrees Celsius. Later, these films were scored by observers on the basis of cooling behaviors (yawning and gular fluttering -- the rapid and continuous opening and closing of the beak, which acts to flap membranes in the throat and thereby increase evaporative cooling). These observers were unaware of the ambient temperature that the experimental birds were subjected to.

Their data revealed that the budgerigars were more than twice as likely to express cooling behaviors such as yawning as the ambient temperature rose. Yawning behavior peaked at 30 degrees Celsius, then decreased, to be supplanted by gular fluttering (figure 1). Apparently, yawning is the initial thermal regulatory response but as the ambient temperature further increases and heat dissipation becomes more difficult, gular flutterring is triggered.

Figure 1. Frequency and distribution of (a) stretching and (b) yawning in budgerigars in response to ambient temperature. o: observed; _: linear regression; ._.: quadratic regression.

DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.09.014.

These data indicate that yawning is, indeed, a biological thermoregulatory behavior, triggered by increased ambient temperatures.

But why do we care about yawning? There is a growing body of medical and physiological research that links increased ambient temperatures with the unpleasant symptoms of certain medical conditions. Further, it has also been noted that yawning often precedes an epileptic seizure or a migraine headache among those who suffer from them, and increased yawning is also associated with multiple sclerosis. Furthermore, individuals with these health problems tend yawn excessively anyway. Additionally, people who are taking paxil (paroxetine HCl) or Celexa (citalopram) often experience excessive yawning during the first three or so months of treatment. Thus, excessive yawning in humans may be indicative of health problems or can be associated with medications that should be investigated further.

But there are positive aspects to yawning too, because it serves to reinstate an optimal brain temperature that facilitates mental alertness and arousal, and its infectiousness may have evolved to facilitate group vigilance.

"Yawning more accurately reflects a mechanism that maintains attention, and therefore should be looked at as a compliment!" concluded Gallup.

So tell me: have you yawned yet?

Sources:

A Gallup, M Miller, A Clark (2009). Yawning and thermoregulation in budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus. Animal Behaviour, 77 (1), 109-113 DOI: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.09.014.

Andrew C. Gallup, Gordon G. Gallup Jr. (2007). Yawning as a Brain Cooling Mechanism: Nasal Breathing and Forehead Cooling Diminish the Incidence of Contagious Yawning. Evolutionary Psychology, 5 (1), 92-101 [free PDF].

grrlscientist Wed, 12/17/2008 - 11:46

Categories

Brain and Behavior

must...resist...urge...

"and its infectiousness may have evolved to facilitate group vigilance."

A lot of human interaction is unconscious, like the way people synchronise body posture, gestures, volume and pacing of speech, breathing rate and general mood.

So I might rewrite the line:

The infectiousness of laughter and yawning may have evolved to promote group synchrony and coherence.

At first, I had no response. By the end of your post I had started yawning at every mention of the word.

This is thoroughly unscientific, but when I was much younger my grandfather would tell me that dreams were in the air all around us, and when we yawned they got inside us so we could see them when we were asleep.

Well, obviously we all did yawn, because we were all reading the post so intensively that our brains were over-heating. This is an improvement, normally most of your readers are snoring by the end of the post.

*runs and hides*

I call BS. From beginning to end this is implausible, and what is the fit on that data? There is no trend there, it's just noise.

For one, comparing animals for whom respiration is a significant mechanism of cooling to humans doesn't make sense. We can sweat, redirect blood to the surface area of our skin etc., to thermoregulate and these are our dominant mechanisms for doing so. Humans don't pant like dogs to dissipate heat for instance. Why would we yawn?

"Cooling the brain" makes little sense in this context as our bodies have far more elaborate and effective mechanisms to do this. And there is a better and more plausible mechanism for yawning. That is physiologic splinting open of alveoli. As we breathe at rest our tidal volumes are quite low and the total minute ventilation of the alveoli is modest at rest. Especially as we slow down and are less active this ventilation gets quite low (like at bedtime when we're sleepy). As a result, alveoli collapse causing atelectasis. To maintain airflow and splint alveoli back open we yawn, vastly increasing ventilation and opening pressure on the alveoli. This serves two purposes - keeping the lungs well ventilated and preserving the mucus transport function of the lungs that fails with collapse predisposing to infection.

You see this in the hospital, people who are bedridden develop atelectasis which can predispose them to pnuemonia and infections since the closed alveoli don't expel mucus and get all clogged up. We give them incentive spirometers to make sure they keep taking deep breaths and keep splinting those alveoli open and decrease the rates of atelectasis and pnuemonia.

As far as the second piece, where people yawn less when they breathe through their nose? Duh! There is a big difference in ventilation through two small wholes and big gaping mouth, both having to do with inspiratory pressure. You have to generate lower pressures to breathe in through your nose requiring greater inspiratory effort. As far as the packs, I don't know why they yawned less. But when you hold a cold pack to your forehead you're cooling your forehead, not your brain. Your body's ability to maintain a nice constant internal temperature isn't going to be beaten by a cold pack.

I agree with Mark. Those graphs dont look that impressive. On the other hand, the alveolar collapse theory does not explain everything either. why do we yawn more when we are sleep deprived? or is that just me?

I with Omar Ali. I yawn when I am tired. Seeing other people yawn or seeing pictures reading about it does not make me yawn. Lack of sleep or after a meal was drowsy does. Like MarkH, I call BS.

Further "research" here though results are, oh well, inconclusive. Ben

Just a comment on the graph from a practicing statistician - the data are counts, so that's about as good as you're going to get with these numbers. From the plot, I'm pretty happy that the quadratic curve is there (although I would have used a different analysis, and I'd like to look at the residuals to be sure).

Interesting study. Thanks for your contribution to Take Charge of Your Health Care carnival.

The 'Air Intake' theory is bunk, cause babies yawn in the womb, where there is obviously no air.
The 'CPU overheating' theory makes more sense, but really we still dont actually know.

was very very helpful for a project i'm doing. thanks

I have a comment specifically about how the author/researcher suggest that yawning and seizures/migraines are so connected. I am a migraine sufferer and have been for the last 14 years. Yawning before a migraine attack is very common for me. But what is strange is that my entire life, EVERY time I yawn, my whole body shakes involuntarily right after. So I wonder if my body shaking is a slight seizure. Ever since I have been on Topamax (an anti-seizure drug), my migraines have improved from the migraines that are triggered by bright, flickering or certain types of lights. I haven't noticed, however, if the shaking around the time I yawn has improved since being on the Topamax.

Just wanted to know if anyone else had ever had that experience when they yawn.

UV Vision in Budgerigars

grrlscientist — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 06:59:59 +0000

UV Vision in Budgerigars

tags: Parrots in the Land of Oz, parrots, behavior, Australia, nature, ornithology, streaming video

Did you know that budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus -- erroneously known as "parakeets" in the United States -- can see UV light? Did you know that female budgerigars rely on the UV reflectance to judge the quality of potential mates? This is a fascinating little trailer about wild budgerigars from the Nature program Parrots in the Land of Oz, which airs on PBS on 19, 20 and 21 October [1:43]

grrlscientist Tue, 10/21/2008 - 02:59

Budgerigar

grrlscientist — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:59:58 +0000

Budgerigar

tags: budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, birds, parrots, Image of the Day

Third in a series of psittacine images by this photographer.

Budgerigar (Budgie), Melopsittacus undulatus.

Image: John Del Rio [larger view].

This parrot's scientific name means "song parrot with wavy lines" and its aboriginal name was close to "budgerigar" meaning "good eating" -- they consumed these small parrots as snacks!

The bird in the above picture is a blue morph of this species. The wild-type coloring for Budgerigars is green. A blue bird results in those individuals that cannot manufacture yellow pigment to add to their plumage, leaving it to reflect blue light only (read more about the physics of blue plumage coloring here).

grrlscientist Fri, 05/23/2008 - 08:59