How can birds taste?

Question

Birds seem to know what seeds taste good, but how can they taste when they swallow the seeds whole?

Answer 1

Birds do have taste receptors on their tongues but far fewer than we humans do so they can't taste food as well as we can. Birds depend more on their vision to determine what is good to eat. birds can see light in the ultraviolet spectrum. This means they can see colors we can't. A bird can actually look at a piece of fruit and tell if it is ripe just by looking at it! Pretty cool, huh? I suppose from a survival point of view birds do not need to enjoy their food's taste as much as humans do but, of course, they can taste food to some degree. Since they cannot taste food very well, it probably does not make sense for them to be chewing up their seeds when their gizzard can do the grinding up.

Answer 2

Taste buds, concentrated on the posterior part of the tongue and pharynx floor, are similar to mammalian ones. The total number of taste buds is less, though.

Sweet- Many birds show little interest in sugar/sweet taste except for parrots, hummingbirds, and other nectar and fruit feeders. Hummingbirds can distinguish different kinds of sugars and their concentrations. Seed eaters show no preference for sweet or sour.

Salt - For most birds there is a variety of salt discrimination levels. For sea birds tolerance for salt water is high; they can excrete excess salt through their nasal glands although they will drink fresh water in preference to salt water if given the choice.

Sour- Birds have a wide range of tolerance for sour.

Bitter- Again, a variety of responses. The classic study was done by Brower in 1969. Many species of milkweeds contain cardiac glycosides. If the milkweed is eaten by an animal the heart rate drops but the beat is stronger; a large enough dose is fatal. But 1/2 the fatal dose causes vomiting so an animal will throw up before it absorbs a lethal dose. Many animals learn, then, not to eat milkweeds. Some insects, however, can eat the plants with no apparent side effects. One is the caterpillar of the Monarch Butterfly. Brower raised Monarchs in captivity; some on milkweed and some on cabbage, which has no cardiac glycosides. The cabbage-raised butterflies were fed to Blue Jays and they ate them with no ill effects. Then the birds were offered the monarchs raised on milkweed; 12 minutes later the Blue Jays became violently ill, vomited, but recovered in 1/2 hour. Then the Blue Jays would reject all Monarchs introduced into the cages, no matter how they were raised. If starved, the Blue Jays would capture and pick at the butterflies to taste them first.

The point of this is that birds can taste bitter and will learn to associate bitter with plants or animals and avoid them. Both the predator and prey benefit as the prey doesn't get eaten and the predator doesn't get sick and waste time eating them.

Hope this helped!

Answer 3

Do Birds Have Taste Buds

Answer 4

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
How can birds taste?
Birds seem to know what seeds taste good, but how can they taste when they swallow the seeds whole?

Answer 5

I swear this is true.
We have 6 parrots of various sizes and they all love Cheezits. Not just any Cheezits, but the real official Cheezit brand. Once the Sams Club where we shop was out so we bought Cheese-Nips thinking it wouldn't matter. We attempted to feed them to our birds and they seemed OK with it, except one bird in particular who threw the Cheese-Nip like a frizby every time we tried to feed him one. They look identical and we tried at other times to get him to take one but never succeeded. It would have made a great commercial for Cheezits. When the store was in stock again and we could get them the bird resumed eating Cheezits with gusto.

Answer 6

Even though their tongues are long and pointed, birds can still taste quite well.

Answer 7

Birds can taste good...turkey with cranberry is great if ya ask me!!

Answer 8

Hey! Someone in my twitter feed posted this link so I came to take a look. I'm definitely loving the information. I am book-marking and will be tweeting it to my followers!

Answer 9

Birds have tastebuds on their tounges, they just don't chew like we do.

Answer 10

they don't swallow the seed whole, they taste with their tongue, just like us!