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Egg Incubation Mechanics of Giant Birds
Name
biology-10-00738.pdf
Size
2.26 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
5f73e4b47d6bc545e3f1b96ddcd16b5c
Author(s)
Yen, An
Wu, Hsiao-Jou
Chen, Pin-Yi
Yu, Hon-Tsen
Juang, Jia-Yang
Date Issued
August 1, 2021
Publisher
Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute
Citation
Biology 10 (8): 738 (2021)
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Finite element analysis (FEA) was used to conduct mechanical analyses on eggshells of giant birds, and relate this to the evolution and reproductive behavior of avian species. We aim to (1) investigate mechanical characteristics of eggshell structures of various ratite species, enabling comparisons between species with or without reversed sexual size dimorphism (RSSD); (2) quantify the safety margin provided by RSSD; (3) determine whether the Williams’ egg can have been incubated by an extinct giant bird Genyornis newtoni; (4) determine the theoretical maximum body mass for contact incubation. We use a dimensionless number C to quantify relative shell stiffness with respect to the egg size, allowing for comparison across wide body masses. We find that RSSD in moas significantly increases the safety margin of contact incubation by the lighter males. However, their safety margins are still smaller than those of the moa species without RSSD. Two different strategies were adopted by giant birds—one is RSSD and thinner shells, represented by some moa species; the other is no RSSD and regular shells, represented by the giant elephant bird. Finally, we predicted that the upper limit of body mass for contact incubation was 2000 kg.
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Creative Commons Attribution
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DOI of Published Version
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/biology10080738
