Giant flightless birds were nocturnal and possibly blind

Date:  October 31, 2018

Source:  University of Texas at Austin

If you encountered an elephant bird today, it would be hard to miss. Measuring in at over 10 feet tall, the extinct avian is the largest bird known to science. However, while you looked up in awe, it's likely that the big bird would not be looking back.

According to brain reconstruction research led by The University of Texas at Austin, the part of the elephant bird brain that processed vision was tiny, a trait that indicates they were nocturnal and possibly blind. The findings were published Oct. 31 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A nocturnal lifestyle is a trait shared by the elephant bird's closest living relative, the kiwi -- a practically blind, chicken-size denizen of New Zealand -- and a clue that is helping scientists learn more about the elephant bird's behavior and habitat, said Christopher Torres, a Ph.D. candidate who led the research.

"Studying brain shape is a really useful way of connecting ecology -- the relationship between the bird and the environment -- and anatomy," Torres said. "Discoveries like these give us tremendous insights into the lives of these bizarre and poorly understood birds."

Continued

Uruguay's Blind 'Bird Man' Can Identify 3,000 Bird Sounds

By LEONARDO HABERKORN, ASSOCIATED PRESS

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay — Jun 10, 2016, 9:33 AM ET

 The Associated Press

Born blind, Juan Pablo Culasso has never seen a bird. But through his gifted sense of hearing, he can identify more than 3,000 different bird sounds and differentiate more than 720 species.

The 29-year-old said he realized he had perfect, or absolute pitch, when he was a boy. Tossing stones in a river, he was able to tell his father exactly the note each one made when it hit the water.

Absolute pitch, the rare ability to hear a tone and immediately know it's a C-sharp, for example, is so unusual that only one of every 10,000 people has it, Culasso said, adding that Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was among them.

Culasso said his dad later read to him about birds from an encyclopedia that came with an audio cassette of their calls.

"That's when I realized that I could memorize birds by their sounds," he said.

He said he discovered his calling as a teenager, when he joined an ornithologist on a 2003 field visit, inspired by his love of birds. The bird expert gave him a recorder, and he was hooked.

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