City birds use cigarette butts to smoke out parasites | Hacker News Reader

City birds use cigarette butts to smoke out parasites

nature.com

112 pointsiamwil26 comments

Lest tobacco manufacturers try to trumpet how compounds in cigarettes help protect urban bird nests from parasites, Suárez-Rodríguez warned at the very end of the article that carcinogens and pesticides in the butts may have negative effects on the birds which we don't yet know about.

Apologies: downvoted, when I meant to upvote. Can someone please remedy that?

Ok, I downvoted you, karma balance restored, or "remedied" as you call it. ;)

I up-voted you just now but it seems that conservation of karma means I will soon be down-voted.

Tough crowd today.

I'm amazed at what is being claimed in the headline/description in this article versus what the paper actually has demonstrated (from the brief description in the article/reading the abstract online) - I actually wondered whether the original poster was intending to highlight this disparity. First, the conclusion of the researchers is that having more cigarette butts in a nest correlates with having fewer parasitic mites, but this article states that chemicals in cigarette butts are already known to repel mites. Wouldn't one expect a correlation here? Of course, it's by no means a given, and experiment is required to bear out this conclusion, but it seems like nobody should come away surprised. Second, a correlation here is completely independent from the conclusion that "city birds use cigarette butts" as anything beyond building material! It leaves open this possibility but as far as I can tell the question of intent is entirely unaddressed by the current research. I already know not to expect more from pop-sci research highlights, but I would have though Nature would do better.

It's kind of surprising that a used cigarette butt (as opposed to, say, unburned tobacco) holds enough nicotine to act as an effective anti-parasite material for a nest. It's at least a non-obvious result.

The article linked to another nature article about birds selectively choosing herbs that repel parasites to line nests, and using scent to know when to refresh them.

Given that cigarette butts are effective and that birds are known to pick nest material carefully, the conclusion that birds are introducing them intentionally isn't unreasonable.

It might not be the nicotine, but the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons produced by burning, which are broad-spectrum venoms.

Nicotine was used as a insecticide: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotine

Oh, I'm well aware that nicotine is an insecticide. But it's present in very small quantities in tobacco smoke, compared to the PCAHs.

As a smoker, I can tell you that nicotine becomes concentrated in the filter, along with tar and lots of nasty things.

The last half of a cigarette is stronger than the first half.

Who is surprised? No-one in the article nor the sub-editor's choice of headline suggests surprise.

Where are the sensationalist lines that you see? Apart from the heading, the article is full of questions as to whether or not the birds are doing a modern variation of a previously acknowledged behaviour, from the first paragraph to the second-last. It seems to me that you're reading too much into just the heading, then choosing to be outraged.

Not too surprising, as both smoke, and many different herbs, are natural pest repellents. Bay leaves, lavender, thyme, etc., might do a good job here too, but of course cannot compete with the availability of pre-shredded tobacco bits in the city.

The true victims of high taxes on cigarettes.

This reminds me of the bird habit of "anting" which consists of a bird applying ants (often with the intent of taking advantage of their formic acid) to their plumage to help eliminate parasites.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anting_(bird_activity)

Great, now birds will get cancer, too.

I am sure they do already, they breath, eat and drink from the same planet as us.

I imagine that most birds, especially those in the city, don't live long enough for cancer to be a significant cause of death.

I imagine if your diet consists of things like "french fries sitting in a puddle of antifreeze and oil leakage from the side of the road" you could get cancer quite quickly :-)

I'm not really convinced that's the cause of cancer...

My aunt used to eat antifreeze and motor oil with her french fries and she lived to 103.

I don't know about cancer, but definitely some chemical poisoning -> thus proving pavel_lishin's point :).

New excuse for not quitting smoking, it's good for the environment.

fast forward a thousand years.... sentient rats using human remains to build new commnunication networks....

Our underestimated neighbours :-)

Animal Farm anybody?

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