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Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)?

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...

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Autores principales: Bertin, Aline, Beraud, Arielle, Lansade, Léa, Blache, Marie-Claire, Diot, Amandine, Mulot, Baptiste, Arnould, Cécile
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6104955/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30133471
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201762
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author Bertin, Aline
Beraud, Arielle
Lansade, Léa
Blache, Marie-Claire
Diot, Amandine
Mulot, Baptiste
Arnould, Cécile
author_facet Bertin, Aline
Beraud, Arielle
Lansade, Léa
Blache, Marie-Claire
Diot, Amandine
Mulot, Baptiste
Arnould, Cécile
author_sort Bertin, Aline
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-61049552018-09-15 Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)? Bertin, Aline Beraud, Arielle Lansade, Léa Blache, Marie-Claire Diot, Amandine Mulot, Baptiste Arnould, Cécile PLoS One Research Article 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. Public Library of Science 2018-08-22 /pmc/articles/PMC6104955/ /pubmed/30133471 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201762 Text en © 2018 Bertin et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bertin, Aline
Beraud, Arielle
Lansade, Léa
Blache, Marie-Claire
Diot, Amandine
Mulot, Baptiste
Arnould, Cécile
Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)?
title Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)?
title_full Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)?
title_fullStr Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)?
title_full_unstemmed Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)?
title_short Facial display and blushing: Means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (Ara Ararauna)?
title_sort facial display and blushing: means of visual communication in blue-and-yellow macaws (ara ararauna)?
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6104955/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30133471
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0201762
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