Mynah Birds Research Articles

Radiographic Reference Intervals for Cardiac Size in Common Mynahs (Acridotheres tristis).

Cardiovascular diseases in the common mynah (Acridotheres tristis) often go undiagnosed due to limitations with the physical examination and common concurrent illnesses. The aim of this study was to establish accurate reference intervals for cardiac size based on radiographs for this species. All birds were considered healthy based on physical examination. High-quality ventrodorsal radiographic images were obtained from 34 healthy common mynah birds. The cardiac width (CW), thoracic width, distance between third and fourth ribs, synsacral width, coracoid width, and distance between clavicular bones were evaluated on the ventrodorsal radiographic images. Additionally, the ratio between the CW and these anatomical indices were measured. In order to evaluate the correlation between CW and the radiographic indices, a linear regression model was used. The mean ± SD for CW in the 34 birds was 16.1 ± 0.9 mm (95% confidence interval: 14.1-18 mm). Significant moderate correlation was found for CW with thoracic width (R2 = 0.37; P < 0.001), coracoid width (R2 = 0.25; P = 0.002), and the distance between the third and fourth ribs (R2 = 0.34; P < 0.001). The radiographic reference intervals calculated in this study can be used to evaluate cardiac size in the common mynah bird.

Ramesh Chandra Joshi

Ramesh Chandra Joshi had a long and distinguished career as a consultant physician in respiratory medicine, during which he developed a modern respiratory medicine service, including a first class clinical...

Measurement of Tear Production Using the Phenol Red Thread Test in the Common Mynah ( Acridotheres tristis ).

To evaluate tear production in the common mynah ( Acridotheres tristis ) using the phenol red thread test (PRTT) and to make a comparison of measurements with the PRTT placed in the fornices of lower and upper eyelids, tear production of both eyes in 22 healthy adult captive mynah birds was evaluated. After positioning of threads in the fornices of upper and lower eyelids, the PRTT values of the birds were 17.5 ± 3.1 mm/15 s and 19.2 ± 2.5 mm/15 s, respectively. A significant difference was found between PRTT values for upper eyelids and lower eyelids (P = 0.01). This study provides novel data for normal reference ranges of PRTT values in healthy common mynah birds and shows that a difference is found depending on where the PRTT thread is placed.

Policing the oeconomy of nature: The oiseau martin as an instrument of oeconomic management in the eighteenth-century French maritime world

The natural environments of the Isle de France and Isle de Bourbon (present-day Mauritius and Réunion) were radically altered by European colonization in the eighteenth-century. In the 1740s, locusts were introduced to the islands, then under French possession, through the trans-oceanic movement of plants, peoples, animals, and foodstuffs. By straining agricultural production in the islands, locusts challenged French colonial administrators’ attempts to transform the islands into a granary that could supply fleets sent to pursue France’s imperial ambitions in the Indian Ocean. The introduction of insect-eating mynah birds (acridotheres tristis), imported from other parts of France’s colonial empire by the naturalist and administrator Pierre Poivre, was envisioned as a strategy for achieving a productive balance between the natural and human oeconomies of the islands. Yet engineering a stable balance between the natural and human elements on the islands proved to be more difficult than Poivre and his contemporaries had anticipated, as the mynah birds came to be widely seen as equally destructive as the locusts they were intended to eliminate by the 1770s and 1780s.

Syndromes and conditions of parrotlets, pionus parrots, poicephalus, and mynah birds

There has been a paucity of documentation concerning recognizable diseases and syndromes involving parrotlets, pionus parrots, and poicephalus parrots. This manuscript combines data from breeders, well-known avian veterianrians, and the scientific literature. Diseases of mynah birds have been updated to contain the most current knowledge base. This information will be valuable as a baseline when encountering clinical illness involving these species in the clinical practice setting.

Mynah Birds and the Robert Packer Hospital

Mynah Birds and the Robert Packer Hospital

From rehabilitation of voice to early detection of larynx-cancer hoarseness / Clinical application of vocal mimicry in mynah birds

From rehabilitation of voice to early detection of larynx-cancer hoarseness / Clinical application of vocal mimicry in mynah birds

Radiology of the Avian Skull

A standard radiographic anatomy of the skulls of three genera of birds (Psittacines, Accipitrines, Passerines) is worked out and illustrated by drawings. The African grey parrot is described as a standard. All detectable anatomical structures are identified and set into relationship to discernable structures in cockatoos (Cacatua galerita galerita), common buzzards (Buteo buteo) and mynah birds (Gracula religiosa).

Pathogenicity and Immunogenicity of Mynah Pox Virus in Chickens and Bobwhite Quail

An avian pox virus was isolated from cutaneous proliferative lesions removed from greater hill mynahs (Gracula religiosa) imported from Malaysia. Cutaneous inoculation of specific pathogen-free chickens and bobwhite quail with the mynah pox virus resulted in severe proliferative cutaneous lesions similar to those seen in the naturally infected mynah birds. Microscopically, the reaction in the chickens and quail at sites of virus inoculation was characterized by marked epithelial hyperplasia with ballooning degeneration and formation of cytoplasmic inclusion bodies. Inoculation of conjunctival and oral mucosae of chickens by applying pox virus with a cotton swab did not result in gross or microscopic lesions.In cross-protection studies, chickens and bobwhite quail immunized with either quail, fowl, pigeon, turkey, or psittacine pox vaccines were not protected from challenge with mynah pox virus. Following vaccination of quail and chickens with mynah pox virus vaccine, there was no resistance to challenge by quail, fowl, pigeon, turkey, or psittacine pox viruses. Significant protection against development of lesions following inoculation with mynah pox virus was attained only when the homologous virus was used as a vaccine.

「鳴管型人工喉頭」の開発と臨床応用

The mynah birds, having no teeth or lips, possess the excellent ability to imitate almost any kind of sound and human speech that they hear. We began to think of apply the well-structured mynah's vocal organ to laryngectomees and developed the pneumatic“Syrinx-type artificial larynx. ”By using the new apparatus, the degree of clearness of speech sounds was increased as compared with those of the conventional artificial larynx.

Neuronal discrimination of natural and synthetic vowels in field L of trained mynah birds.

The discrimination of single neurons for vowels and vowel components was analyzed in the telencephalic field L which is a layered and tonotopically organized primary auditory projection area in the bird's neostriatum. Among 250 units, 132 (53%) were responsive to at least one out of nine vowels from one German speaker. The distribution of responsiveness to n (one to nine) vowels showed that a maximum of 33 out of the 132 neurons preferred n = one vowel. The mechanisms of vowel selectivity were analyzed with five synthetic vowels composed of two formants F1 and F2 which could be presented separately. Most of the selective units also responded to F1 or F2 of the preferred vowel alone. The suppression of the vowels could be explained by formants which fell into inhibitory ranges of that unit, independently demonstrated by the pure tone response. Other units had several excitatory bands which coincided with the formants of the preferred vowel. In some cases a certain amplitude ratio of F1 versus F2 gave the strongest response. Several qualitative models of excitatory-inhibitory interaction of inputs to field L neurons are presented which explain the described selectivities. It is interesting that the distribution of vowel-selective units relates to the most superficial and most basal layer of field L where units selective for species-specific calls have previously been located in a gallinaceous bird.

TRANSMISSION OF AVIAN POX FROM STARLINGS TO ROTHCHILD'S MYNAHS

Several wild species of birds, including starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), house sparrows (Passer domesticus) and pigeons (Columba livia) gained access to an aviary housing Rothchild's mynahs (Leucospar rothchildii) and over 100 additional birds representing a variety of species. Six of approximately 15 mynahs became infected with avian pox and all of them died. None of the other birds in the aviary developed lesions. Pox virus was isolated from mynah facial lesions on chicken chorioallantoic membrane and in duck embryo fibroblast cell culture. It did not produce lesions in white Leghorn chickens, but did produce lesions in 4 of 11 wild starlings captured outside the aviary. Results indicated the agent was an indigenous starling pox capable of infecting and producing disease in mynah birds. Destruction of the captive starlings and isolation of the remaining mynahs immediately stopped the mortality.

Acceptance of novel flavours is increased after early experience of diverse tastes

WE believe that the more an animal experiences diversity of flavours at one time the more it will accept novel flavours later. Thus, rats given several distinctive flavours early in life would be more likely to accept an unfamiliar flavour later than would rats whose early gustatory experiences have been less varied. This hypothesis has had some empirical support in the literature. Kuo1, for example, mentions pilot research suggesting that cats, dogs and mynah birds raised on restricted diets for extended periods avoided new food, while others of their kind reared on varied diets ate novel foods readily. We have now found a similar effect with rats using flavoured solutions rather than solid foods.

Exotic Newcastle Disease Eradication Program in the United States

Exotic Newcastle disease was first diagnosed in two unrelated cases in the United States: in August 1970 in a pet-shop bird in New York City; and in chickens in El Paso County, Texas. The virus was later isolated in Massachusetts, New Mexico, Florida, California, Connecticut, Puerto Rico, Illinois, Arizona, Georgia, and Colorado. The probable source in most outbreaks was imported pet birds, especially psittacine and mynah birds. Secondary outbreaks in domestic poultry, spread from primary introductions via imported birds, occurred in California and are suspected to have occurred in Florida. Outbreaks in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona were probably caused by virus transported via infected or exposed game chickens or on the clothing of Mexican day laborers. Federal and state quarantines have been placed on infected areas to combat spread. On March 14, 1972, the Secretary of Agriculture declared an emergency because of the threat posed to the entire U.S. poultry industry by exotic Newcastle disease. In a program to eradicate the disease, 9,677,457 birds in 910 flocks had been destroyed in California, Florida, Arizona, Colorado, and Texas by December 31, 1972, with indemnity payments of $18,610,071 from federal funds and $259,400 from state funds. In addition, a federally sponsored vaccination program was carried out in the quarantined area in California. Exotic Newcastle disease in the United States is part of a worldwide pandemic beginning in 1967 in all major poultry-producing and bird-growing countries.

Reinforcement control of “autistic” verbalization in the mynah bird

In an attempt to provide suggestive support for Mowrer’s “autistic” theory of imitative speech, food reward was differentially paired with taped presentations of verbal phrases (response-correlated stimuli) from the vocabularies of two talking mynah birds. Monitoring of free speech subsequent to daily experimental sessions indicated that verbal response hierarchies were changed from baseline in the predicted direction of a secondary reinforcement effect for both Ss in the first training phase, and for one bird in an attempted replication.