Why is wing-spreading behaviour absent in blue-eyed shags?

Timothée R. Cook (1) , Guillaume Leblanc (1)

1 CEBC - Centre d'Études Biologiques de Chizé

Wing spreading is a general behaviour in cormorants, and has been described worldwide in most species (Orta 1992). Yet, this behaviour is missing (with some exceptions, see below) in the species belonging to the so-called ‘blueeyed shag complex' (Bernstein & Maxson 1981), hereafter referred to as ‘the complex', a group of cormorants living on the coasts and islands of the waters of the Southern Ocean between roughly 40S and 70S latitude (Patagonia, Antarctic Peninsula, subAntarctic Islands, New Zealand) and comprising 13 species that have close morphological similarities (Siegel-Causey 1988).

Domaines: Biodiversité et Ecologie; Environnement et Société

Timothée R. Cook, Guillaume Leblanc. Why is wing-spreading behaviour absent in blue-eyed shags?. Animal Behaviour, 2007, 74, pp.649-652. ⟨10.1016/j.anbehav.2006.11.024⟩. ⟨hal-00182823⟩