page_title: Mistletoebird
section_title: Feeding adaptations
hierarchical_section_title: Mistletoebird / Behaviour / Feeding adaptations
caption_attribution_description: English: Mistletoe seed as a bird would dispose it Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts. Subject to disclaimers. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. Subject to disclaimers. You are free: to share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work to remix – to adapt the work Under the following conditions: attribution – You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). share alike – If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. This licensing tag was added to this file as part of the GFDL licensing update. Taken or Created by User:Fir0002
context_page_description: The mistletoebird, also known as the mistletoe flowerpecker, is a species of flowerpecker native to most of Australia and also to the eastern Maluku Islands of Indonesia in the Arafura Sea between Australia and New Guinea. The mistletoebird eats mainly the berries of the parasitic mistletoe and is a vector for the spread of the mistletoe's seeds through its digestive system.
context_section_description: The mistletoebird has a small muscularized stomach and short alimentary canal, where the amount of mechanical grinding and chemical digestion is minimized. This enables a clear passage and quick exit of the mistletoe fruit seeds through the mistletoebird's digestive system. In comparison, the non-specialized fruit-eating birds that they compete with for the mistletoe berry, such as the spiny-cheeked honeyeater (Acanthagenys rufogularis), have a more complex digestive system that takes longer for the fruit seeds to pass, and in the process the seeds are subjected to more mechanical and chemical action in the gut. It takes between 4–25 minutes for the mistletoe seed to pass through the mistletoebird. In a scientific study in South Australia with the grey mistletoe (Amyema quandang), it took 2.3 times longer for the mistletoe seeds to pass through the digestive system of a spiny-cheeked honeyeater (A. rufogularis) than it did through the mistletoebird and five months after seed deposit, 43% more seedlings had established from seeds defecated by mistletoebirds than from seeds passed by the honeyeater.  The mistletoebird's modified gastrointestinal tract is in the same plane. This facilitates rapid passage of the large number of berries consumed. Comparing the frugivore mistletoebird with a similarly sized insectivore the inland thornbill (Acanthiza inornata), where both their body masses are approximately 7 g (0.25 oz). The mean length of the gizzard in the mistletoebird is 4.3 mm (0.17 in) and 13.5 mm (0.53 in) in the thornbill. The mean length of the small intestine is 55 mm (2.2 in) in the mistletoebird and 88 mm (3.5 in) in the thornbill.
  The mistletoebird has a large gape relative to the size of its head and its total body size. This allows grasping and swallowing the mistletoe fruit, which are about 12 mm (0.47 in) long by 7 mm (0.28 in) in diameter. These are large berries relative to the diminutive mistletoebird.
  Efficiency of mistletoe fruit dispersal by the mistletoebird is increased by the way the bird perches on a branch to defecate. They sometimes stand facing along the host tree branch depositing seeds in a string on the perch. Honeyeater-dispersed seeds, in contrast, fall randomly and less efficiently onto substrates below the defecating bird. The texture of the defecated seed with the mistletoebird is stickier than other bird's feces to facilitate a strong bond with the host tree branch.
caption: Deposited mistletoe seed. Sticky, to facilitate propagation in the host tree.
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