Evaporative Losses of Water by Birds

1. Birds lose water in evaporation from the respiratory tract and, in many species, through the skin. Anatomical arrangements in the nasal passages to conservation of water and hear from the expired air in the absence of heat loads. However, most species still expend more water in evaporation than they produce in metabolism when either quiescent or vigorously active. Certain small birds, several of them associated with arid environments, represent exceptions to this and their more favorable situation appears in part to reflect as an ability to curtail cutaneous water loss. 2. Birds typically resort to panting in dealing with substantial heat loads developing in hot environments or accumulated over bouts of activity. In a number of species this form of evaporative cooling is supplemented by gular fluttering. 3. The ubiquitousness of active heat defense appears to reflect more the importance for birds of dealing with heat loads existing following flight or sustained running than any universal affinity for hot climates. Panting can be sustained for hours, despite progressive dehydration and, in some instances, hypocapnia and respiratory alkalosis. The prominent involvement of thermoreceptors in the spinal cord in its initiation is of considerable interest.