Eagle eyed or bird brained?

Abstract

The importance of the visual system to birds for behaviours from feeding, mate choice, flying, navigation and determination of seasons, together with the presence of photoreceptors in the retina, the pineal and the brain, render the avian visual system a particularly fruitful model for understanding of eye-brain interactions. In this review we will particularly focus on the pigeon, since here we have a brain stereotactically mapped and a genome fully sequenced, together with a particular bird, the homing pigeon, with remarkable ability to navigate over hundreds of miles and return to exactly the same roosting site with exceptional precision. We might denigrate the avian species by the term bird brained, but here are animals with phenomenal abilities to use their exceptional vision, their eagle eyedness, to best advantage.

Translated abstract

鸟类的视觉系统在进食、择偶、飞行、导航和季节判定等行为方面至关重要, 加上视网膜、松果体和大脑中存在光感受器, 使鸟类的视觉系统成为理解眼-脑交互作用的一个富有成效的模型。在这篇综述中, 我们聚焦于信鸽这种特殊的鸟类, 因为我们有其大脑立体定位图和完整的基因组测序, 并且信鸽具有能够导航数百英里, 并精确地返回原栖息地的能力。我们使用“鸟脑”这个词可能会低估鸟类, 但这些动物有着鹰一般的眼睛, 和能充分利用它们独特的视觉系统的非凡能力。