Not like night and day: the nocturnal letter-winged kite does not differ from diurnal congeners in orbit or endocast morphology

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dc.contributor.authorKeirnan, Aubrey
dc.contributor.authorWorthy, Trevor H.
dc.contributor.authorSmaers, Jeroen B.
dc.contributor.authorMardon, Karine
dc.contributor.authorIwaniuk, Andrew N.
dc.contributor.authorWiesbecker, Vera
dc.date.accessioned2024-10-02T20:33:06Z
dc.date.available2024-10-02T20:33:06Z
dc.date.issued2022
dc.descriptionOpen access article. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0) applies
dc.description.abstractNocturnal birds display diverse adaptations of the visual system to low-light conditions. The skulls of birds reflect many of these and are used increasingly to infer nocturnality in extinct species. However, it is unclear how reliable such assessments are, particularly in cases of recent evolutionary transitions to nocturnality. Here, we investigate a case of recently evolved nocturnality in the world's only nocturnal hawk, the letter-winged kite Elanus scriptus. We employed phylogenetically informed analyses of orbit, optic foramen and endocast measurements from three-dimensional reconstructions of micro-computed tomography scanned skulls of the letter-winged kite, two congeners, and 13 other accipitrid and falconid raptors. Contrary to earlier suggestions, the letter-winged kite was not unique in any of our metrics. However, all species of Elanus have significantly higher ratios of orbit versus optic foramen diameter, suggesting high visual sensitivity at the expense of acuity. In addition, visual system morphology varies greatly across accipitrid species, likely reflecting hunting styles. Overall, our results suggest that the transition to nocturnality can occur rapidly and without changes to key hard-tissue indicators of vision, but also that hard-tissue anatomy of the visual system may provide a means of inferring a range of raptor behaviours, well beyond nocturnality.
dc.description.peer-reviewYes
dc.identifier.citationKeirnan, A., Worthy, T. H., Smaers, J. B., Mardon, K., Iwaniuk, A. N., & Weisbecker, V. (2022). Not like night and day: The nocturnal letter-winged kite does not differ from diurnal congeners in orbit or endocast morphology. Royal Society Open Science, 9(5), Article 220135. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220135
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10133/6931
dc.language.isoen
dc.publisherThe Royal Society Publishing
dc.publisher.departmentDepartment of Neuroscience
dc.publisher.facultyArts and Science
dc.publisher.institutionFlinders University
dc.publisher.institutionStony Brook University
dc.publisher.institutionThe University of Queensland
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Lethbridge
dc.publisher.urlhttps://doi.org/10.1098/rsos.220135
dc.subjectLetter-winged kite
dc.subjectNocturnal hawk
dc.subjectVision
dc.subjectSkull
dc.subjectEvolution
dc.subjectBirds of prey
dc.subjectElanus scriptus
dc.subjectNocturnality
dc.subjectVisual system morphology
dc.subject.lcshNocturnal birds
dc.titleNot like night and day: the nocturnal letter-winged kite does not differ from diurnal congeners in orbit or endocast morphology
dc.typeArticle
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