Summary
Drinking was studied in adult chickens by cinematography and radiography. Three subsequent behavioral phases occur. (1) Water is transported from the water box into the oropharynx when the beak is immersed. Then delicately tuned cyclic motion patterns of beaks, tongue, and larynx transport water by capillarity, squeezing, and suction. (2) During the elevation of the head the tongue is elevated and the larynx is depressed to keep the water in the pharynx against the gravitational and centrifugal forces that result from the upward swing of the head. (3) During the tip up phase gravity transports the water to the esophagus, while the adhering water is pushed and squeezed caudad by tongue and larynx movements. Flexibility in the adult drinking mechanism was analyzed by comparing the drinking of normal and beak-trimmed chickens under normal drinking conditions, as well as while drinking small drops. Three modes of behavioral flexibility were discussed: conservative, regressive, and progressive flexibility. Most behavioral elements of the modal action pattern in drinking are so flexible that a chicken can reorganize the movement patterns of jaws, tongue, larynx, and head to adapt the mechanism to external (drop drinking) or internal (beak-trimming) changes. However, in drop drinking, the normal chicken relies upon a regressive takeover by an ontogenetically earlier developed pattern in the craniocervical motion system. Presence of the observed progressive flexibility in lingual and cervical motion patterns is shown to be a precondition for the avian drinking mechanism to keep up with dominant evolutionary changes in feeding mechanisms.
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Heidweiller, J., van Loon, J.A. & Zweers, G.A. Flexibility of the drinking mechanism in adult chickens (Gallus gallus) (Aves). Zoomorphology 111, 141–159 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01632904
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01632904