Lovebirds take spinning to a whole new level as a new study reveals that the birds are able to turn their heads at a whopping 2,700 degrees per second!
The study was conducted by Stanford University's Daniel Kress, along with his colleagues. The researchers discovered that lovebirds were able to perform this feat during flight and these rotations in high speed aid them in improved vision as it reduces the blur while they are in flight.
The birds are able to turn their heads in a precise manner as their wings cover their eyes, which reduces the time period where their sight is obscured.
The rapid speed makes lovebirds the fastest vertebrate to be able to do so. Lovebirds belong to the parrot genus Agapornis. They are named "lovebirds" owing to their monogamous nature. Lovebirds are about five to six inches tall and weigh 40 to 60 gms.
For those wondering how the researchers were able to discover this phenomenon, the team recorded the lightning-quick pattern by filming the same at 2,000 frames per second. The high-speed video captured the lovebirds turning their heads swiftly in a task that was goal-directed and required the birds to take off, fly from a perch, turn and fly back to ground onto the same perch that was constructed in a custom-built flight space. The researchers trained five lovebirds for the purpose of the study.
"The first step was to train the birds to fly between two perches. In the second step, one perch was removed and birds were trained to fly away, turn and return to the remaining perch. During the third step, the width of the perch was decreased to about 21 cm (8.27 inches), after which the birds were ready for the experiment," wrote the researchers in the paper.
According to the researchers, the rapid maneuver enables the lovebirds to make split second decisions.
The team is hopeful that the visually-guided maneuvers that were accurate and swift may act as inspiration for designers to create camera rotation devices for drones that will improve imaging.
The study was published in the journal PLOS ONE on June 24.
Photo: Takashi Hososhima | Flickr
