In the behavior

Behavior

Behavior or behaviour refers to the actions and mannerisms made by organisms, systems, or artificial entities in conjunction with its environment, which includes the other systems or organisms around as well as the physical environment...

 called anting, bird

Bird

Birds are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic , egg-laying, vertebrate animals. Around 10,000 living species and 188 families makes them the most speciose class of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from...

s rub insects on their feathers, usually ant

Ant

Ants are social insects of the family Formicidae and, along with the related wasps and bees, belong to the order Hymenoptera. Ants evolved from wasp-like ancestors in the mid-Cretaceous period between 110 and 130 million years ago and diversified after the rise of flowering plants. More than...

s, which secrete liquids containing chemicals such as formic acid

Formic acid

Formic acid is the simplest carboxylic acid. Its chemical formula is HCOOH or HCO2H. It is an important intermediate in chemical synthesis and occurs naturally, most notably in the venom of bee and ant stings. In fact, its name comes from the Latin word for ant, formica, referring to its early...

, that can act as an insecticide

Insecticide

An insecticide is a pesticide used against insects. They include ovicides and larvicides used against the eggs and larvae of insects respectively. Insecticides are used in agriculture, medicine, industry and the household. The use of insecticides is believed to be one of the major factors behind...

, miticide

Miticide

Acaricides are pesticides that kill members of the Acari group, which includes ticks and mites.Acaricides are used both in medicine and agriculture, although the desired selective toxicity differs between the two fields.-Terminology:...

, fungicide

Fungicide

Fungicides are chemical compounds or biological organisms used to kill or inhibit fungi or fungal spores. Fungi can cause serious damage in agriculture, resulting in critical losses of yield, quality and profit. Fungicides are used both in agriculture and to fight fungal infections in animals...

, bactericide, or to make them edible by removing the distasteful acid. It possibly also supplements the bird's own preen oil

Personal grooming

Personal grooming is the art of cleaning, grooming, and maintaining parts of the body. It is a species-typical behavior that is controlled by neural circuits in the brain.- In humans :...

. Instead of ants, birds can also use millipede

Millipede

Millipedes are arthropods that have two pairs of legs per segment . Each segment that has two pairs of legs is a result of two single segments fused together as one...

s. Over 250 species of bird have been known to ant.

Function

It has been suggested that anting acts as way of reducing feather parasites such as mites or in controlling fungi or bacteria, although there has been little convincing support for any of the theories. It is possible that the use of certain kinds of ants indicates the importance of the chemicals they release. Some cases of anting involved the use of millipede

Millipede

Millipedes are arthropods that have two pairs of legs per segment . Each segment that has two pairs of legs is a result of two single segments fused together as one...

s or Puss Moth caterpillars, and these too are known to release powerful defensive chemicals.

Another suggested function, based on observation of Blue Jays, is that the bird makes the insects edible, by discharging the harmful acid onto their feathers. The birds were found to show anting behaviour only if the ants had a full acid sac, and with subjects whose acid sacs had been experimentally removed, the behaviour was absent.

Finally, it has also been suggested that anting is related to feather moulting. However, the correlation may also be attributed to the greater activity of ants in summer.

History

This behaviour was first described by Erwin Stresemann

Erwin Stresemann

Erwin Stresemann was a German naturalist and ornithologist.Stresemann was one of the outstanding ornithologists of the 20th century...

 in German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 as einemsen in Ornithologische Monatsberichte XLIII. 138 in 1935. Salim Ali

Salim Ali (ornithologist)

Sálim Moizuddin Abdul Ali was an Indian ornithologist and naturalist. Known as the "birdman of India", Salim Ali was among the first Indians to conduct systematic bird surveys across India and his bird books helped develop ornithology...

 interpreted an observation by his cousin Humayun Abdulali

Humayun Abdulali

Humayun Abdulali was an Indian ornithologist, and a cousin of Salim Ali. He started with bird egg collection and shikar...

 in the 1936 volume of Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society

Bombay Natural History Society

The Bombay Natural History Society, founded on 15 September 1883, is one of the largest non-governmental organizations in India engaged in conservation and biodiversity research. It supports many research efforts through grants, and publishes the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society. Many...

with discussion on Stresemann's paper and the suggestion that the term could be translated into English

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

 as "anting".

Related behaviours

Dusting

Dust bath

Dust bath is the act of an animal grooming and cleansing its skin or fur from parasites by rolling or moving around within dust or sand.-Overview:...

 with soil from ant-hills has been considered by some as equivalent to anting.

Some birds like flickers not only ant, but also consume the ants as an important part of their diet. Other opportunist ant-eating birds include sparrow

Sparrow

The sparrows are a family of small passerine birds, Passeridae. They are also known as true sparrows, or Old World sparrows, names also used for a genus of the family, Passer...

s, wren

Wren

The wrens are passerine birds in the mainly New World family Troglodytidae. There are approximately 80 species of true wrens in approximately 20 genera....

s, grouse

Grouse

Grouse are a group of birds from the order Galliformes. They are sometimes considered a family Tetraonidae, though the American Ornithologists' Union and many others include grouse as a subfamily Tetraoninae in the family Phasianidae...

 and starlings.