December 8, 2011

Blue-Footed Boobies

                                                                 BOOBIES!!!
Right! Know that I have all you pervs' attention, I can natter about blue-footed boobies.  These guys are adorable with big blue feet.  Males and females make highly different vocalizations.  To attract a female the male emits a high piping noise and dances. The female has a more gutteral voice.
   
  They have the rather super human ability of diving head first into the ocean at 100km an hour to fish at depths of up to 25m below the oceans surface.  Why?  Hell if I know.  But apparently the sexual differentiation enables smaller males to fish in shallower waters and larger females to fish in deeper waters. This might help them obtain food from more than one source and raise more than one young successfully!
The male has more yellow on its iris than the female. The Blue-footed Booby has permanently closed nostrils made for diving. I believe the one below is a male. The first picture looks like a female.  They breathe through the corners of their mouths. You can see the funny wedge angle of their bill close towards they join of the mandible.  

No comments:

Post a Comment