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1 November 2008 Is the Ingestion of Small Stones by Double-Crested Cormorants a Self-Medication Behavior
Stacey A. Robinson, Mark R. Forbes, Craig E. Hebert
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Abstract

Many birds ingest small stones to aid in the grinding up of coarse food items in the diet. However, small stones are also found in the stomachs of species with diets consisting of soft food items, and may serve to mechanically remove parasites attached to the stomach wall. We sampled Double-crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) at two sites to examine whether ingestion of small stones served an antiparasite function and whether this behavior differed between the sexes. At a Lake Ontario site, females more often had small stones in their stomachs and were less parasitized by nematodes than were males, and males with small stones had fewer nematodes than males without small stones. We did not find similar patterns in small stone presence or parasitism at a Lake Erie site; however, Lake Erie birds had fewer parasites and lower proportions of birds with small stones. These results suggest that ingestion of small stones by Double-crested Cormorants might indeed serve an antiparasite function.

Stacey A. Robinson, Mark R. Forbes, and Craig E. Hebert "Is the Ingestion of Small Stones by Double-Crested Cormorants a Self-Medication Behavior," The Condor 110(4), 782-785, (1 November 2008). https://doi.org/10.1525/cond.2008.8541
Received: 27 December 2007; Accepted: 1 August 2008; Published: 1 November 2008
KEYWORDS
cormorant
endoparasitism
lithophagy
nematode
self-medication
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