News: nectar-eating birds

Honeyeater evolution for high sucrose diet

Scientists have long suspected the digestive systems of nectar-eating birds, such as honeyeaters, co-evolved with the nectar-composition in flowers. To document whether this theory is accurate, in a paper published in iScience, researchers at the University of Adelaide studied the ability of birds to digest different sugars, and looked at whether they matched the nectar sugars found in plants used by families of birds in different parts of the world.

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