Some tiny birds take daring dangers to collect a beakful of hair for his or her nests. Titmice have been noticed dive-bombing cats, alighting on dozing predators’ backs and plucking strands of hair from folks’s heads. Now, there’s a time period for the weird habits: kleptotrichy.
Derived from the Greek phrases for “to steal” and “hair,” kleptotrichy has hardly ever been described by scientists, however dozens of YouTube movies seize the habits, researchers report on-line July 27 in Ecology. Titmice — and one chickadee — have been caught on video tugging hair from canine, cats, people, raccoons and even a porcupine.
“Citizen scientists, fowl watchers and other people with canine knew this habits way more than the scientists themselves,” says animal behaviorist Mark Hauber of the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Standard observations precede science fairly than the opposite means round, which is a legitimate approach to do science.”
Scientists counting birds in an Illinois state park in Might 2020 noticed a tufted titmouse plucking fur off a dozing, unbothered raccoon. The staff dubbed the habits “kleptotrichy” after a search of the scientific literature and novice movies on YouTube turned up greater than 100 situations of hair thievery by birds.
Witnessing a fowl steal hair from a mammal within the wild is what first impressed Hauber’s colleague, ecologist Henry Pollock, to dig deeper. Whereas counting birds in an Illinois state park in Might 2020, Pollock and colleagues noticed a tufted titmouse pluck fur from a sleeping raccoon. “I used to be like, ‘Wow, I’ve by no means seen something like that,” says Pollock, additionally of the College of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
In South America, palm swifts snatch feathers from flying pigeons and parrots — a habits already generally known as kleptoptily. Looking out via the scientific literature, Hauber, Pollock and colleagues discovered solely 11 anecdotes of birds stealing hair from dwell mammals. Whereas most revealed accounts contain titmice in North America, no less than 5 different fowl species get in on the motion. Researchers have seen an American crow harvest hair from a cow and a red-winged starling in Africa peck a small antelope referred to as a klipspringer. In Australia, three honeyeater fowl species steal fur from koalas.
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In the meantime, a YouTube search by the staff turned up 99 movies of tufted titmice, a mountain chickadee and a black-crested titmouse plucking hair from mammals. The latter two fowl species had not beforehand been recognized as hair thieves within the scientific literature.
Scientists usually assume that birds collect hair for his or her nests in low-risk methods, counting on carcasses or stray fluff shed into the wind. “Plucking hairs from raccoons, that are widespread avian nest predators, means that it’s clearly price it to get that hair,” Pollock says.
Hair-harvesting species are inclined to dwell in colder climates, so these birds in all probability prize hair’s insulating properties, the staff says. Some birds may additionally spruce up their nests with mammal hair to confuse would-be predators and parasites (SN: 8/28/01).
