Around this time every year , red - collared lorikeets fall from the heavens on to Australia ’s Northern Territory . What ’s make these loopy razzing to flee under the influence ? Experts distrust the birds are consuming a toxic enigma plant .
say Lisa Hansen of the Ark Animal Hospital at Palmerston , Australia :
It encounter every year around this time of year , they lose all balance and we discover them fallen out of Tree and the sky [ … ] Unless someone intervenes , they ca n’t fly and will get cull up by predators [ … ] It seems that the birds get inebriate by something they have deplete and it renders them unable to fly and function … they can get very brainsick as a final result [ … ] We are jolly certain it ’s a industrial plant , but we do n’t know which industrial plant . citizenry talk about seeing drunken birds under umbrella trees when they are flowering .
Ecologist Chris Tzaros of Birds Australia take down that the musk lorikeet of southeastern Australia also experience inebriety when they devour eucalypt ambrosia :
Those hoot become drunk on eucalypt nectar . They feed in some flush , and then fall out of the blossom , disoriented to the ground [ … ] These razz develop to feed on eucalypt nectar all daytime long , everyday . It might be a particular time of the year when the nectar ferments or a particular tree which affects the birds .
In any case , if Aussie reader see red - collared lorikeet swerving through the sky , contact your friendly neighborhood ornithologist .
[ Australian GeographicviaSlashdot . Photo by Mitch Reardon . ]
australiaBiologyBirdsParrotsScienceZoology
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