If you see a bird flattened on the ground and ants in the air, you may think it is sick and in the process of swallowing alive. An extraordinary photograph taken by photographer Tony Austin certainly illustrates this kind of scene – but the involvement of ants is actually the purpose of the bird.
The behavior known as “anting” and it is one that known to practice by a very small number of bird species, very rarely photographed. “Someone was acting strangely after seeing the crow’s murder, it was seen that [he] was bathing in very strange and violent dirt,” Austin wrote in the picture’s perfect Vancouver Island Facebook group where they shared the first picture. “Did I see his hesitation only in editing back home?” Do not be sad, enlarge the photo and read the comments.
The members of the team concerned were happy to learn that the death of the bird was actually an innovative spa treatment, with the ants biting the bird rather than just not surviving. Active or Passive: Anting can do in one of two ways. Active Anting sees birds as a choir climbs ants and puts them in their feathers, while passive stinginess can achieve by simply pushing oneself over an ant and climbing it board. While seen in most shunt birds, the second half of this bird tango thought to derive from two subfamilies of ants, none of which are stinging (meaning).
They rebuild what they lack in defense, but expel acid and oil (from their stomach and rectal glands, respectively) as a way to repel the attackers. How this smelly baby benefits birds of prey remains a mystery, but it is doubtful whether it is comfortable to play a role in the maintenance or role of feathers. Birds can get flocks then they have molten feathers, a natural process that probably irritates the skin. Despite what Johnson in my eyes led us to believe, ants can alleviate this discomfort. The presence of ants can improve the health of birds. Hers can clear parasites from the base of their feathers.
Lice and mites are common freeloaders for birds and do not have the decency to extract beneficial butt-gland-goo or acid when trumping across the skin. Notably, the fun does not even stop at the ants, as some birds have employed with the help of millipedes and even bomber cats. The latter creates a particularly violent alternative to dust baths, considering that, if threatened, the bomber beetle mixes with hydrogen peroxide, hydroquinone and water. The cocktail produces a strong exothermic reaction that causes the resulting liquid mixture to boil before it pops violently through the valve at the tip of the abdomen.
