Nature’s very own solar panels: Roadrunner tails!
Good morning, and I hope it’s a beautiful sunny day where you are!
If you’ve been alive for the past, maybe 10 years or so, you’ll have read about solar panels, which are all the rage right now in the world of renewable energy.
Solar panels are a really cool way to generate electricity from the sun! They're made up of photovoltaic cells that convert the sun's energy into electricity. They're a clean and renewable source of energy that can help to reduce your carbon footprint and generate constant, free energy!
So how do birds tie into this amazing piece of technology?
Well, I’d like to introduce you to one of nature’s original ‘solar panels’: melanin-rich surfaces!
Specifically, a roadrunner bird’s tail!!!
First, about melanin
I don’t want to go too long without writing about birds, so let me keep it brief. Melanin is a pigment that gives colour to skin, feathers, and eyes in animals. People (and birds!) with dark skin and hair have a lot more melanin than those with light skin.
But melanin isn’t all about looks. This pigment serves an amazing function, too: melanin-rich surfaces are way better at absorbing sunlight and turning it into energy!
Plus, melanin protects us from harmful UV rays (so a darker-skinned person can stay in the sun for a longer time with less chance of getting sunburnt. But please, even if you have dark skin, remember to wear sunblock and protect yourself from skin cancer!)
Now, on to birds!
Roadrunners are a type of bird that live in the desert.
And although you may think of deserts as the hottest places on Earth, they actually are also… some of the coldest places in the world. The temperature in the desert can change drastically from day to night because the air is so dry that heat escapes rapidly at night. While desert daytime temperature averages 38°C, it can get down to -4°C at night!
Animals that live in the desert have to adapt to these crazy shifts in temperature - something that’s made much harder because not much plant life grows in the desert, so animals sometimes have nowhere to hide out.
The Roadrunner has adapted to live in these extremes
At night, when it gets real cold, the Roadrunner lowers its body temperature slightly, going into a slight ‘torpor’ to conserve energy.
We learnt from an earlier article about hummingbirds that torpor is a state where the body reduces its energy output: it lowers the body’s temperature, its metabolism, and its basic functions (such as heartbeat, and more)
You can think of torpor and hibernation as similar states.
It’s actually difficult to wake an animal up from a state of torpor. Even if you prod at them, they may not respond to your touch - this is because their bodies are functioning at a sort of ‘lesser’ state.
So, during the cold desert night, the Roadrunner lowers its body temperature slightly and goes into a slight torpor to conserve energy. This is because, if their bodies were too warm compared to their surroundings, they would lose heat energy. Instead, the Roadrunner cools itself down.
When daytime comes, though, the Roadrunner needs to quickly recharge itself so it can get back to running on the road!!
To warm itself during the day, the roadrunner uses its very own, built-in solar polar: its tail! These birds will expose dark patches of skin on its tail to the sun - which then turn solar energy into their own energy, hooray!
How COOL! Their tails work like solar panels!
The feathers on the Roadrunner's tail have a high concentration of melanin, which, as we learnt earlier, is a pigment that absorbs light. This allows the roadrunner to "sunbathe" by positioning its tail feathers in the sunlight, which warms their body and helps them to become much more active in a short period of time!
Many other animals sunbathe, actually. Cold-blooded reptiles such as crocodiles do it all the time, and so do other desert-dwelling animals such as lizards, snakes, and even mammals.
But it’s not just their tails that are cool!
As an adaptation to their hot, dry climate, Roadrunners have also evolved to pee less. When animals (and humans!) pee, they pass out liquid from their bodies, but also excess salt and toxins from the body. If one were to go too long without peeing, they’d build up unhealthy levels of salt and toxins in the body.
The Roadrunner’s body has adapted to their environment and devised a way to excrete excess salt without peeing out any liquid and thus dehydrating them: they have a nasal gland around their eye that allows them to discharge this excess salt!
More fun facts about Roadrunners, and their cool tails!
There are 2 species of Roadrunners in the world: the Greater Roadrunner and the Lesser Roadrunner.
Before you get upset at the choice of name: the birds are given these monikers because of their size, and not because of their worth, or contribution to society!
Both species are generally found in the same sort of habitats. They like lots of land, and are more often found in dry deserts that are sandy, rocky, and full of thorny plants. The Greater Roadrunner ranges from the southwestern and south-central United States down through Mexico, and the Lesser Roadrunner is found further south, in Mexico and Central America.
But regardless of the species, these ground-dwelling birds have long legs and tails and are known for their amazing speed. In fact, the Greater Roadrunner is known as the fastest bird on foot in North America!
These birds have an adorable habit, too: when threatened, they’ll actually ‘play dead’ by lying motionless on the ground with their beaks open, and tongues hanging out.
Since they live in the dry, arid deserts, Roadrunners have to get their food from a whole bunch of different sources. They’ll prey on insects, lizards, small mammals and birds, and even rattlesnakes!
These feisty birds (which measure up to 60cm tall and are really not that big) will actually peck at the rattlesnake's head until it is unconscious, and then swallow to snake-snack whole.
Would a Greater Roadrunner be able to outrun a hungry coyote?
Beep beep!
If you’re my age (late-20s… sob) you may have come across the Looney Tunes characters, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. The funny duo first appeared in 1949 in the theatrical cartoon short Fast and Furry-ous - adorable name - and feature a devious and constantly hungry coyote that spends every episode trying (and generally failing) to catch the Road Runner.
But the swift roadrunner always manages to outrun and outsmart the wiley coyote. This is in spite of the fact that a Greater Roadrunner can reach speeds of 32km per hour (20 mph) while a coyote can run at speeds of up to 64km per hour (40mph)!!!
Coyotes are also generally known for their endurance and can keep a steady pace for miles, whereas Greater Roadrunners are not that great at endurance-running. They can, however, make lots of sudden turns and stops, and are known to run in a zigzag pattern which makes it harder for predators to catch them.
Well, that’s all for today’s article. I hope you liked it!
They might be my new favorite bird. Finding out that road runners have a gland for expelling salt, similar to marine iguanas, makes them extra cool in my book. :)