Chicks snooze to sniff

摘要

By the time a 45-day-old blue petrel chick emerges from its burrow to embark on its maiden foraging flight, both parents have taken off, leaving the youngster to tend for itself. So how does the youngster know what to look for when hunting krill? Gabriellc Nevitt is fascinated by the way procellariiform seabirds, such as blue petrels and thin billed phons, track down food with their sense of smell, and wondered whether the youngsters rccognise their prey's smell even before they have left their burrow. Working with Henri Weimerskirch and Francesco Bonadonna in France, Nevitt and her lab decided to test the chick's responses to a range of smells, some of which they'd encounter in their natural surroundings (p. 1615).