Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
are the best (or at least will do for now) provides an advantage over other males
and will be selected. But could such efforts actually result in traces that are later re-
cognizable as the efforts of desperate male birds attempting to entice female birds?
Furthermore,couldcourtshiptracesbeusedasmodelsfordetectinganalogoustrace
fossils, whether made by non-avian dinosaurs or birds?
Some tracks could qualify as traces that might be connected with pre-mating
rituals. For example, nearly everyone knows about peacocks and their exhibitions
of glorious tail feathers, but perhaps fewer think about what the peacocks are doing
with their feet. Peacocks, in order to show off the full extent of their tail feathers,
perform a slow pirouette, often defining a tight circle. This results in many overlap-
ping tracks in the same small, semi-circular area; whether tracks overlap from right
to left or left to right could be used to figure out whether the peacock turned clock-
wiseorcounterclockwise,respectively.Maleploversalsomakedistinctivepre-mat-
ing trackways by high stepping (also called “marking time”) and placing one foot
directly in front of the other. The trackways from this behavior are downright weird
when compared to their normal walking trackways, consisting of parallel sets of
tracks in which each track is arranged end-to-end. If another male plover is in the
area, a race might happen in which the two contenders run parallel to one another,
back and forth, in front of a female. The tracks from this behavior are distinct from
high stepping, as the tracks would be much farther apart from one another but still
would consist of two parallel trackways.
Other than tracks, male birds of different species make many additional traces
that tell us they were looking for love, perhaps in all the right places. We also
already learned about male kakapos and their ground amplifiers, which they use as
the avian equivalents of “Mr. Microphone” systems to advertise their availability.
But howaboutbirdsthat gotheextra distance bymaking something special forthat
little ladybird in their life? Indeed, a few birds go the route of becoming artists and
engineers, going for visual impact by constructing elaborate, shiny structures that
impress females with their ingenuity.
