Colourful egg for seabird recognition
19 Apr 2019 by Evoluted New Media
The colourful appearance of the common murre egg is due to a genetic ability of the mother to manipulate pigments.
The colourful appearance of the common murre egg is due to a genetic ability of the mother to manipulate pigments.
A team of researchers led by Mark Hauber at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign studied variation in colour and maculation density of murre egg shells, which range from beige, turquoise and pale blue.
They found that a variation in both sets of traits was related to the ability to innately manipulate concentrations of pigments biliverdin and protoporphyrin IX.
This gives their eggs a recognisable pattern to help the mother identify their eggs in crowded colonies. It also allows each mother to repeat the same colour and pattern for multiple eggs.
The common murre spends most of its time at sea and comes to land to breed. It does not build a nest, but instead lays and incubates its cone-shaped eggs on rocky cliffs.
The team’s study has been published in Journal of the Royal Society Interface.
Common Murre at Semidi Islands, Alaska, USA
