Great Bustards Use Plants To Avoid Disease [Study]

The largest living bird capable of flight, the great bustard (Otis tarda), does not schedule a visit to the doctor when it is ill in the wild. Instead, the striking, vibrant, and endangered species appears to use particular plants that it looks for as self-medication.

Since 1996, Portugal and Spain have had about 60% of the world's population of the ground-nesting bird, found in open grasslands and farmland from northern Morocco, South and Central Europe, to temperate Central and East Asia.

When the last bird was shot in 1832, the biggest flying bird went extinct in Great Britain; more recent attempts to restore it in England have had some success, and there are currently about 40 great bustards on Salisbury Plain, a training ground for the British Army.

However, a recent study published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution titled "Bioactivity of plants eaten by wild birds against laboratory models of parasites and pathogens" suggests that great bustards may have another claim to having unusual habits: they appear to actively seek out two plants that have compounds that can kill pathogens. They are a unique example of a bird that utilizes plants to treat illness or self-medicates.

Self-Medicating Great Bustards

The corn poppy (Papaver rhoeas) and purple viper's bugloss are two plant species that great bustards consume more frequently than one might anticipate, given their abundance (Echium plantagineum). Corn poppy seeds are rich in fatty acids, whereas bugloss seeds are full of edible oils.

"Here we show that great bustards prefer to eat plants with chemical compounds with antiparasitic effects in vitro," said Dr. Luis Bautista-Sopelana of Madrid's National Museum of Natural Sciences and the study's first author (per UPI).

The study's findings also confirmed the theory that male bustards ate two plants because courting exercise put them under immunological stress.

Great bustards consume purple viper's bugloss and corn poppy during the month of April's mating season when the birds are at their most energetic.

According to the study, male great bustards' immune systems are compromised during the mating season due to their investment in secondary sexual traits and sexual presentation.

However, the authors warn that more investigation is necessary to demonstrate that the birds are indeed self-medicating and to comprehend how effectively their cures operate.

About Great Bustards

The "lek breeders" known as great bustards congregate at a predetermined location and put on a show to persuade females to mate with them. The neck sac is inflated during this ceremony, which also features extravagant feather displays and body flexion.

According to New Scientist, males occasionally display their cloaca, the bird's solitary opening for its reproductive, urinary, and digestive systems, so that females may examine it for any illness symptoms. Great bustard females weigh between 11 and 15 pounds while males can weigh up to 45 pounds.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List categorizes great bustards as vulnerable because they may be found in portions of Asia, Europe, and northern Morocco. Agribusiness equipment threatens the bustards' nests, and chemicals kill the insects the chicks would consume.

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