Abstract
Mainly recognized for their cognitive performance, the visual communication system and, particularly, the potential function of facial displays in parrots remain thus far unexplored. Here, we provide the first descriptive study of facial display use in captive blue-and-yellow macaws. We observed the feather position (sleeked or ruffled) on the crown, nape and cheek at the group level during the macaws’ daily routine and individually while interacting with a familiar animal caretaker. In the latter context, blushing was also assessed on the bare skin of the cheek. Group level observations showed that crown, nape and cheek feathers ruffling was more frequent in activities requiring no locomotion than in activities requiring locomotion. With the animal caretaker, crown ruffling was significantly more frequent when the caretaker was actively engaging with the parrot than during a control phase with no mutual interaction. In addition, a significantly higher proportion of naïve observers judged blushing as being present on photographs taken during the mutual interaction phase than during the control phase. We thus showed significant variations in facial displays and bare skin colour based on the birds’ social context and activity. Our results broaden the scope for further studies to determine whether parrots’ faces provide visual social signals.
Highlights
In addition to their primary functions in flight and thermoregulation, bird plumage provides visual signals within and between species
The proportions of scans where feathers ruffling was observed were significantly lower during activities requiring locomotion than during activities requiring no locomotion for the crown (df = 1; Mean Square (MS) = 1.06; P < 0.01), the nape and the cheek (Fig 3)
We provided the first descriptive study on facial feather display and bare skin colour variations in macaws
Summary
In addition to their primary functions in flight and thermoregulation, bird plumage provides visual signals within and between species. Sometimes associated with conspicuous plumage colouring, are well described in the contexts of mate acquisition and agonistic interactions [1,2]. In many avian species with sexual plumage-colour dimorphism, complex visual signals are thought to have evolved through females’ sexual selection since variation in the visualized plumage properties may convey signals regarding mate quality or fighting ability [3,4,5,6]. Parrots do not express carotenoid-based colouration (in which variation may convey information on mate quality) but a colouration based on a unique pigment class called psittacofulvins, which are not related to diet [9]. To our knowledge, body feather use in social contexts unrelated to sexual selection or aggressive interactions remains overlooked in parrots
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