Many assume that birds do not have taste buds. Do birds have taste buds, they ask. Well, yes! Birds do not only have taste buds, but besides using them for tasting, they are used for manipulating the food at the back of the throat as well.
Most birds can taste all flavors except spicy. They happily detect sweet, sour, salty, savory and bitter flavors in the food that they eat. Spiciness cannot be detected by the palate of most birds because the main component in spicy food items, ‘capsaicin’, fails to get detected by the taste receptors. Birds have mainly four types of taste receptors, each having a separate task.
This article focuses on the flavors that birds can detect, how different birds are adapted to taste differently, types of taste buds and where they are located, and much more. So let’s flap our wings and take to the air!
Contents
Can Birds Taste At All?
Birds have a complicated mechanism for impeccable vision, hearing and smelling, but are their tasting ability just as heightened?
They do love to taste though. There had been observations where ducks were offered sweet-tasting and unpleasant-tasting peas. The birds gobbled up the sweet ones without raising any objection, but when it came to the bitter-tasting ones, they at first held the peas at the tip of their bill, and within seconds they threw the food out.
Other birds placed the caterpillars of monarch butterflies onto their beak and within seconds spit it out of their mouth. This is because monarch butterfly caterpillars expel a bitter-tasting chemical called cardiac glycosides to protect themselves from being eaten. Hummingbirds can taste sugar solutions and prefer those that have more sugar mixed with the solution.
These incidents indicate that birds do have the ability to taste, their beaks are highly sensitive to taste, and if they do not like the taste, they can throw tantrums just like a small human child. They do not only eat for survival, they choose which food they would like to eat based on how they taste.
Turns out that though birds do not have an ample amount of taste buds, their tongues are especially adapted to feel more! Their tongues are quite sensitive to touch—-meaning, though they cannot taste their food properly, they can certainly feel their food.
How Do Birds Taste?
Let’s explain with the example of parrots because their sense of taste is the most heightened and well-evolved. The beak of a parrot has a dense network of blood-vessels and nerve endings that make the structure very sensitive to taste and touch. Parrots depend on their beaks to a large extent to explore their options while they forage new or unknown habitats.
They pick the piece of food offered to them with the help of their beak, and because their tongues are not highly sensitive to taste, they pass the food morsel down to the oropharynx that has more taste buds than the tongue.
If the food particle tastes palatable to the parrot, the food will be swallowed, otherwise it will be immediately expelled via spitting. Not only parrots, birds of all kinds, do not eat only for survival. They like to taste the food, and if it is not to their liking, they will not have it even though they might be very hungry.
Do Birds Have Taste Buds? Let’s Discover
Source: @giacomobirdlyfe
Let’s talk in numbers. Human beings have 9000 to 10000 taste buds, the reason why we can taste such a wide variety of tastes—sweet, sour, salty, spicy and bitter, among other nuances. Pigs have 15000 taste buds on their tongue, whereas a fish has a million taste buds!
In comparison, a bird has much fewer taste buds. On an average birds have around 500 taste buds on their tongue. Parrots have a well-developed tasting ability with around 400 to 500 taste buds. Geese have a handsome number of taste buds, amounting to 400 located on the insides of their bill. Pigeons have approximately 100 of those receptors, whereas chickens are shy of a bare minimum of 25!
There is a reason as to why birds have such few taste buds. It is mainly because during foraging, their heightened sense of smell is enough to search and locate abundant food. Take Turkey Vultures for example. These birds can smell the rotting flesh of dead animals, which is basically their food, from miles away.
Where Are Bird Taste Buds Located?
Taste buds of birds are located in the middle of their throat, a region called the oropharynx. Taste buds can also be found on the top, bottom and edges of a bird’s tongue. Taste buds of birds are also present at the base or roof of the mouth.
The tips of the tongue of most birds are rough or hard, meaning that there are no taste buds there. It is because of this position that birds can actually tell different flavors, like sweet or salty, apart.
If you observe closely, after a parrot, for example, has savored a piece of fruit, it will move the morsel back and forth inside its mouth for some time to relish the taste. They are no less troublesome than food-loving humans!
Do Birds Have Tongues?
Source: @elliegrrl
Birds do have a tongue but it is not as large or muscular as in humans and other mammals. Their feeding habits have a large role to play here.
Birds do not have teeth, so they cannot chew their food into smaller pieces. They use their beaks and their tongue to crush the food, then they tilt their head backward to use the power of gravity to push their food down their throat. Most of the large birds, like herons and ostriches, swallow their food whole.
Tasting food before eating is quite important in the avian world. Being able to detect bitterness and sourness will only help the bird to stay away from rotting and poisonous food items.
However, as important it might be for small birds to taste their food before eating, to large birds tasting is a secondary option. Swallowing large sized prey in one gulp poses a lot of danger to the birds. At the time of swallowing, the first priority is to swallow the food safely, tasting comes later or not at all!
So birds indeed have tongues, but those tongues are mainly used to manipulate the food to the back of the throat. In fact, the taste buds present on the tongue are mainly used to channel the food item inside, and not to taste the food. Beaks, roof and floor of the interior palate, and the throat contain taste buds also, and these taste buds are used for tasting.
Types of Taste Buds in Birds
There are basically 4 types of taste buds in a bird’s mouth with the help of which a bird can detect different types of flavors and decide which food to eat and which to avoid. The types of taste buds, along with their functions, are as follows:
- Foliate Papillae: These taste buds help the birds to detect water-soluble elements in the food
- Circumvallate Papillae: With the help of these taste buds, a bird can appreciate sour and bitter flavors
- Filiform Papillae: These taste buds give the birds an idea of the texture of the food, and also help the avian to decide if the food should be swallowed or not. These taste buds also help the bird to devour the food whole down the throat.
- Fungiform Papillae: These form of taste buds attach to the flesh of the fruit or prey so that it does not slip off the mouth. In other words, these taste buds help to keep the food inside the mouth while the bird is flying off to a less crowded horizon, for example.
Which Birds Have Taste Buds?
Source: @indianwildography
Here we have tried to create an assorted list of birds, each belonging to a different family of aves. While some birds have only 25 taste buds, others, like parrots, have around 500 of them! Can they detect all flavors? Let’s find out.
Parrot
Parrots are avid eaters, and can even gobble up full ball peppers. But are they able to taste the different flavors? Parrots have around 400 to 500 taste buds on the roof and base of their tongues, mouth, and throat. However, to taste the different flavors, the taste buds on their tongue do not come to much use.
The taste buds located at the oropharynx, the middle of the bird’s throat, is where the flavors of the food eaten finally materialize. Taste buds that are present at the tip of their beaks also play a profound role at tasting things. You will often find parrots picking up random things with their beak and keeping it there for a few seconds. They are trying to detect the flavor of that object.
At the oropharynx, the final decision to swallow the food item is taken. If the food tastes salty or bitter, it will be brought back to the mouth and spit out immediately. It will swallow the food if it is found to be sweet or umami flavored. Fatty foods like Brazil nuts and sunflower seeds are also savored by this adorable bird.
Parrots are quite sensitive to sweet flavors. They like naturally-occurring fructose, but raw and processed sugars are detested by them. They become quite vulnerable to respiratory infections if exposed to a high sugar diet on a daily basis.
These birds like sour flavors too. They chew the flesh of citric fruits because they know it will give them greater immunity, and help them grow healthier skin and shinier feathers.
Parrots like umami flavors too. Umami flavor is found in meat, fish, tomatoes, cheese and mushrooms. Mushrooms and tomatoes should be cooked first before being offered to parrots because they may contain toxins and acidic properties. Parrots like meat and fish too but should be given only occasionally. Chicken and turkey meat, and eggs could be offered to parrots.
Goose
Research was done in Kagoshima University, Japan, around the year 2018, to find out the taste preferences of geese. They were offered sucrose, sour, salty, bitter and umami solutions.
The birds showed neither preference nor rejection for the sucrose solution. However, they demonstrated strong rejection for the salty solution, sour and umami solutions. In the case of bitter tasting items, geese showed high sensitivity. This experiment shows that geese may not be that sensitive to sweet tastes, but are more or less affected by the other flavors.
This study was conducted to find out a way to keep geese away from crops. Geese have around 400 taste buds. They show a lot of abhorrence toward bitter taste. What the farmers did was spray the crops with grape soda which is quite bitter in taste. Geese reduced their visits to the crop lands drastically.
Pigeon
Birds do not depend on taste or are as sensitive to taste as mammals, especially humans, are. They mostly eat for survival, but at times, being able to taste does help them because then they are able to tell the difference between edible and toxic substances.
Pigeons have only 37 taste buds in their mouth. Grains and fruits are things they like to munch on, and these food items taste mostly neutral or sweet.
Sweetness is a flavor that most birds can detect and enjoy, but starch, being a polysaccharide, does not have any special taste. Pigeons are not very picky when it comes to food. They will eat just about anything that their palate says yes to.
Chickens
Chickens have around 350 taste buds in their throat. They can tolerate sour tastes quite well, and cannot detect spicy tastes.
Bitter, sweet and salty are tastes that chickens neither feel attractive or repulsive. The taste buds of chickens are located at the deeper back of their throat, a very unfavorable location. Most of the time, chickens have already swallowed something before they even tasted it.
As such, they cannot taste bitterness in food adequately. Thus, chickens may be quite vulnerable to accidentally ingesting something toxic or poisonous.
Crow
Crows are quite intelligent generally, and have a count of 100 taste buds. They seem to eat almost anything, but they are largely carnivores and will eat raw chicken, beef and turkey.
The taste buds in crows are located on their tongues. African pied crows have taste receptors on the upper surface of their tongues, mostly at the tip.
Duck
Ducks have around 400 to 500 taste buds making them the chef in the bird’s kitchen! They are great tasters– thanks to the taste buds that are located on the papillae covering the interior of their bills.
There are taste buds present on their tongue as well, however those are not used to taste the prey. They use their tongue to mostly crush shell-covered fruits and arthropods and push the edible parts down their throat.
Penguin
Penguins are quite interesting when it comes to what flavors they can taste. Believe it or not, these large, flightless birds do not have the ability to taste any other flavor except sour and salty. They are unable to taste sweet, bitter and umami flavors.
Since penguins largely feed on fish and invertebrates whose sizes are significant, pushing them down the throat becomes a larger headache than tasting it. Their choice of food does not require tasting to a great extent, so evolution may have toned down the taste receptors a bit.
The main possible culprit behind this rather unfavorable palate of penguins could be the harsh conditions of Antarctica. A certain protein molecule that sends sweet, bitter and umami flavors to the brain does not function adequately at extremely low temperatures.
Starling
European starlings have 200 taste buds, and can detect sweet flavor very easily. In one study, a species of starlings were given sucrose solution and other types of sugar solutions. The birds could detect which one is sucrose— reason being they cannot digest it, so they have found a way of staying away from it.
They can also taste salty, bitter and citric flavors. European starlings cannot detect spicy flavors.
Do Wild Birds Have Taste Buds?
Source: @we__love__birds
Many have assumed that wild birds do not have taste buds, or even if they do, the taste buds are not sensitive enough to the different flavors of nature. But much to the contrary, since wild birds have to forage and taste a lot of substances before they can finally decide what to eat and what not to, they are bound to have higher sensitivity to the different kinds of tastes available.
Hummingbirds have 40 to 60 taste buds in their mouth that allow them to taste sweetness more than any other flavor, but certain hummingbirds are known to eat wasps and beetles too. Beetles and wasps may taste salty, bitter and sour. Bullfinches eat mostly buds, seeds, and even tiny invertebrates and they have around 46 taste buds.
Great horned owls, when hungry, will eat almost anything they can lay their wings on. Starting from insects, they will consume small birds, reptiles and even scorpions. They may also consume skunks that release skunk spray that smells extremely bad.
These owls combine the tasting ability of their 50 taste buds with their adequate sense of smell, to gulp that whole skunk down. From this example, we can understand they eat mostly to survive, and taste preferences for great horned owls are secondary.
Quails have 62 taste buds and they mostly go for grains, seeds and small insects. Their dietary habits are not extremely varied, but contain carbohydrates, fats and proteins. However, quails use their tongues to manipulate the food items to push it to the deeper sections of their throat. Not much is known about quails using their taste buds to taste or savor their food.
What Tastes Can Birds Taste?
It is hard to believe that despite not having that many taste buds as humans, they can taste as much as humans and other mammals. Avians can experience sweet, salty, bitter, umami and fatty flavors, However, there is one flavor most birds cannot detect. Let’s see which one that is.
Sweet
Birds have taste buds on both their tongues and in the middle of their throat, as discussed previously. It has been known for a long time that birds, generally, can detect that fruits in nature have ripened. However, most birds cannot taste the flavor of sweetness in food, like in sweet treats or fruits. They may have lost that ability as they evolved.
However, parrots still retain the ability to taste sweetness. Their body readily accepts the presence of natural amounts of fructose in fruits, but heavily infused candy or processed treats may give them respiratory infections.
Chickens like to taste sweetness in food. If you give them a sugar solution, they will slurp it down. However, if you give them saccharin solution, they do not like it much, probably because saccharine, though much sweeter than sugar, has a bitter aftertaste.
Hummingbirds are another species of birds that have a high sensitivity to sweet-flavor and are generally attracted to sugar solutions in bird-feeders.
Birds that can detect sweetness have sweet detection receptors or cells located in the anterior visceral part of their tongue that detect the presence of carbohydrates, especially monosaccharides, in food items. These cells then pass signals to the brain. The brain then instructs the bird to either avoid the food or eat it.
Being able to detect sweetness in food is a survival mechanism for birds because it helps them find high-energy food like nectar, insects and fruits. This is very important for the birds because these animals have a highly active lifestyle.
Salty
A study showed that salt dosage, even in minimal concentrations, could be fatal for budgie birds and sparrows. Feeding them anything like crackers or pretzels could actually cost them their lives. The study concluded that sparrows cannot survive a dosage of 3000 mg of sodium to 1 kg of salt! That’s how intolerant their bodies are toward salt.
There are salty taste receptors distributed evenly all throughout the tongue of certain birds that help detect the presence of salty compounds in food items. These receptors send signals to the brain. The brain then sends signals to the bird to take appropriate action.
Parrots might be able to survive salty solutions or edibles though they should be taught to do it with gradual dosage intakes. It will be a learned behavior for them since parrots do not possess the natural inclination to ingest salt. A high level of caution must be maintained while trying to feed birds anything salty.
Birds that forage in the coastal areas like the gulls and herons do have the ability to detect the salty taste in water since ocean water contains a lot of salt. They have filter-feeding mechanisms in their mouth that siphon out excess water thus making sure that excess salt does not enter their digestive tract.
Shorebirds are known to detect saltiness in different types of chloride solutions, and will reject any food item that has salty flavor in it. Most birds do not seem to like salty solutions at all and they stay away from it as much as possible.
Bitter
Bitterness is a taste that most birds avoid like the plague, but for matters of survival in harsh, food-scarce conditions, some birds like the Amazon parrots have adapted to consuming fruits of bitter-tasting plants.
But just because some birds can, do not assume that all birds will adapt to bitter-tasting food items. Remember they are not humans like yourself and do not have the same digestive system like yours— think twice, better thrice, before feeding anything bitter to your pet bird.
There are bitter taste receptors or cells located in the posterior visceral part of the bird’s tongue. They are also present in the throat. These receptors detect bitterness in food items and signal the brain, which inturn sends signals to the bird to take action.
Chocolates look delectably harmless. Yes, maybe to humans. For parrots, chocolates can actually prove to be fatal! Chocolates have a chemical called theobromine in it which is toxic to parrots. Even leafy-green, vegetable items, like spinach or kale, bear a chemical called oxalic acid that can prevent the absorption capacity within the digestive system of the bird’s body.
Oak trees produce a chemical called tannin that has an extreme bitter taste to it. The trees produce this chemical to prevent themselves from being eaten because tannins make the plants tissues quite indigestible to birds and mammals.
Birds can taste the bitterness in tannins and avoid them completely. Any food that has turned rotten or could be poisonous are rejected by birds that show they can taste sourness and bitterness.
Monarch butterflies are a prey to a few birds. Not many birds like to eat them because these butterflies feed on milkweed. Milkweeds contain a bitter toxin called cardenolides, and the butterflies seem to store that toxin inside their bodies, probably to protect itself from being eaten by predators.
When birds eat these butterflies by mistake, they fall very sick. Thus most birds have learnt from their ‘bitter’ memory to avoid the monarch as much as possible. Only two birds can digest monarch butterflies– black-headed grosbeaks and black-backed orioles.
Being able to taste bitter flavors is a survival privilege for many birds in the wild who often need to taste items before they decide they are appropriate for them. This is an ability that can save lives so it can be expected that many birds do have the ability.
Sour
Source: @kavis.clicks
It has been found that certain birds can taste acidic flavors as low as pH 1.5. The taste buds of birds are often referred to as the ‘sour perception capsules’ that help birds detect sour flavors in foods like rotting tomatoes, citrus fruits, spoiled food, and fermented berries.
These sour receptors are located in the lateral visceral part of the bird’s tongue and help detect the presence of acids in food items.
When acidic substances are eaten, they give off hydrogen ions that these sour perception capsules respond to. The perception capsules are basically a series of cells that emit signals to the brain that tell the bird eventually that it has just tasted a sour food item and should proceed eating it or not.
However, due to lack of sufficient taste buds the sensitivity of birds to sour flavors is not as strong as in mammals.
Umami
Umami taste is the taste that is produced by glutamate salts and nucleotides, and the taste produced is somewhat savory. Hummingbirds and songbirds, amounting to a whopping (nearly) 50% of the world’s bird population, have umami taste receptors in their tongues that scientists thought have long been eliminated by the hands of evolution.
There are many birds that despite having well-developed tongues cannot detect savory or umami flavors, but the hummingbirds and songbirds can.
There are umami acid receptors or cells in the hard palate and pharynx of some birds that help them detect the presence of amino acids. It is obvious therefore, that such receptors are more active in omnivores and carnivores.
Scientists carried out an experiment where they offered sugar solutions and plain water to canaries and honey-sucking birds. Canaries do not consume sweet food, instead depend largely on grains. Not only these two birds, but other bird species having different kinds of dietary preferences and appetite were chosen for this experiment too.
It was found out that these songbirds demonstrated high sensitivity to sugar or sweet taste, regardless of alternative dietary preferences. Clearly put, even birds that ate grains showed sensitivity toward sweetness.
Further study into the evolutionary history of songbirds revealed that songbirds developed sweet-receptors some 30 million years ago. Hummingbirds had developed the receptors around the same time too. But because the diet of the songbirds greatly shifted to foraging on insects and grains, the ability to taste sweet-tasting edibles faded.
In case of hummingbirds, the ability to taste sweet flavors remained unadulterated since they mostly depend on nectar from flowers to survive. However, as time progressed, both hummingbirds and songbirds brought changes in specific genes within their DNA that caused them to regain or strengthen their perception of sweet-taste once more.
Spicy
Can birds taste chili peppers? Well, the main component in peppers is ‘capsaicin’ that birds fail to detect, and as such we can say they cannot taste the spicy flavor in food items.
Spicy flavor does not trigger the same pain response in birds as it does in mammals. This is the reason why parrots can readily consume bird peppers without complaining, whereas mammals tend to avoid spices from miles away.
Peppers are completely safe for parrots to eat and are recommended by animal dieticians. Ball peppers, among others, are especially healthy for parrots because they contain Vitamin A and Vitamin C, good for vision and immune systems of the bird, respectively.
Parrots will even go for jalapeno peppers which are one of the hottest spices around with a heat range falling somewhere between 2000 and 8000 SHU measurement. African Gray parrots can eat all types of peppers. Budgies, lovebirds, and cockatiels– all of them can munch on all sorts of peppers. Well, if the parrots cannot feel the taste, why not go at it?
There was a study conducted in 1995 that showed that starling birds are the only species that could detect spicy flavors. With the help of their trigeminal nerve, as in mammals, they could detect capsaicin, the compound that makes spicy food hot-flavored.
Dietary preferences play a major role too— birds that are herbivorous would go for sweet and bitter tastes more, whereas carnivorous birds are more positively sensitive to savory and protein-rich food.
Fatty
Parrots like to feed on sunflower seeds and Brazil nuts that contain fats. Sunflower seeds contain unsaturated fats that are quite good for birds. Peanuts are also gorged on by birds because they possess yummy fats, but some types of peanuts may contain aflatoxins.
Be wary about feeding fats to birds in bird feeders as it may stick to their wings and reduce flight efficiencies. Fats and oils also affect the waterproofing ability of birds’ feathers adversely. If birds lose their waterproof coat, they lose their body-heat quite fast and might perish.
Suet fats, rendered beef fats, and peanut butter could be fed to birds in winters. Coconut and palm oils could be fed too because in winters they solidify. Make sure the fats are stored in a way so that they do not melt or come into contact with the birds’ feathers.
Bird lovers even take the time out to make ‘fat balls’ made of cake crumbs, cheese, and porridge oats mixed with lard or suet. House sparrows, tit-birds, blackbirds and robins are crazy about fat balls.
Cooked animal products and dairy products must be avoided being served to birds at all cost because birds find it very difficult to either digest them or might have lactose intolerance. Polyunsaturated birds like margarine should not be given to birds either.
FAQ
Generally speaking, all birds have tongues and all birds have taste buds. However, unlike humans and other mammals, their tongue and taste buds may not be primarily used for tasting. Nevertheless, birds do have amazing tasting ability. The following list of questions will clarify if birds prioritize tasting food before eating, or eating for survival.
Q: Which flavors can birds taste?
Ans: Birds can taste more or less all flavors, except spicy. They can taste sweet, salty, bitter, umami or savory, and fatty.
Q: Which tastes can birds not taste?
Ans: Spicy taste, though there are always exceptions. Birds like house finches and northern cardinals have been observed to detect capsaicin in spicy food to some extent.
Q: Which birds can taste the most?
Ans: Parrots and ducks seem to be leading the pack. These two birds have around 400 taste buds on average. All other bird species have anywhere between 24 to 500 taste buds.
Q: Why can’t birds taste peppers?
Ans: Capsaicin does not bind to the TRPV1 taste receptor in the bird’s body, thus it does not produce the same painful sensation that is felt by humans after eating hot peppers. It does happen in a mammal’s body though.
Humans do enjoy spicy food from time to time, but animals like cats and dogs avoid spices like the plague, though some herbal spices could be beneficial for these mammals.
Q: Do birds remember what food tastes like?
Ans: Specific studies on this topic has not been done as of yet, but there are certain species of birds like the chickadees, sparrows and nuthatches that actually store food in thousands of different places for winter. This shows that birds do have a good memory.
Q: Which birds do not have taste buds?
Ans: Ostriches do not have taste buds. They have a very effective mechanism consisting of a tongue and a glottis that stay protected from water by an inverted-U shaped pocket, to swallow whole snakes and rodents in one big gulp.
Unfortunately, the tongue does not have any taste buds on them. Taste is only secondary to large birds who are more concerned about safely swallowing large-sized prey.
Thoughts
Do birds have taste buds? Yes, of course they do. However, they do not primarily use their taste buds to taste only, as we humans and other mammals do.
Where are these taste buds located? They are present all over their mouth and throat, and even on the interior sides of their bill. The location and number varies in different species of birds. With these taste buds, birds can detect sweet, salty, bitter, umami and spicy flavors.
Parrots are one species of aves that have a rich appetite and tasting ability. Except spicy, they can detect all other flavors. Most birds, except two or three exceptions, cannot detect spiciness in food because capsaicin, the main component in spicy stuff, does not get detected by the taste buds.
Thanks to nature and evolution, most birds can successfully distinguish sour and bitter flavors and prevent themselves from getting poisoned or severely sick.
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