Feeding Behavior of the Pigeon1

Publisher Summary The class Aves exhibits an enormous variety of morphological and behavioral specializations for feeding, which are reflected most strikingly in the relation between bill structure and food source. This chapter discusses on the control of food and water intake and the regulation of body weight, hunger in the pigeon: behavioral responses to food deprivation, the consummatory response of eating in the pigeon, feeding behavior patterns, brain mechanisms and feeding behavior in the pigeon, trigeminal deafferentation and feeding behavior, and implications for the study of vertebrate feeding behavior. The comparative study of behavior involves the analysis of similarities and differences in the behavior of animals, both within and between major taxonomic divisions. Although research on feeding behavior has focused largely on a few mammalian species, most notably the rat, the neglect of avian neurobehavioral mechanisms is due in part to the widely held assumption that the brains of birds and mammals represent entirely different directions of vertebrate evolution. Certain specific attributes of the feeding behavior make the pigeon a highly suitable model system as for neurobehavioral studies and as an excellent representative of the class Aves, including the behavioral response is species typical, and unlike the rat, the movement patterns constituting eating and drinking in the pigeon are distinctive. The studies of the rat and pigeon presented in the chapter testify to the analysis of vertebrate feeding behavior mechanisms.