For animals exploring new territory, taking risks is key to survival. But eating unfamiliar foods can be dicey, since they might contain new pathogens and parasites. One avian immune system, however, seems to have a way of rolling with the punches.
Researchers found a link between the willingness of female house sparrows to eat weird food — specifically, seed spiked with chicken poop — and the expression level of a gut immunity gene, TLR4. The higher the expression of this gene, the more poop-laced food the birds ate, the team reports in the July Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.
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