Sandpipers ‘pumped up’ on natural steroids

It seems some birds are able to pump up their bodies with natural steroids in preparation for migration.

Biologist Jean-Michel Weber of the University of Ottawa found that the semipalmated sandpiper uses omega-3 fatty acids found in mud shrimp to make its muscles use oxygen more efficiently.

The sandpiper migrates 3,000 kilometres every summer from the Canadian Arctic to South America, including three days of non-stop flight over open water. Before their departure, the birds change their diets, and the size of their gut increases. They also increase their exercise routine, building up stamina by flying more. But in an early pause on their migration, the birds also stop for two weeks to eat mud shrimp in the Bay of Fundy.

To test his theory, Weber fed mud shrimp to bobwhite quail, a bird that rarely flies. After eating the shrimp for six weeks, the quail’s muscular efficiency at using oxygen increased from 58 to 90 percent.

“I thought I would find an increase,” Weber told ScienceNOW Daily News, “but I was very surprised to see such a large increase.”

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 15th, 2010 at 2:32 pm and is filed under On the Fringe. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site. Add to del.icio.us.