For
an egg to develop normally, it must be exposed for a
considerable length of time to temperatures a few degrees
below the normal 104 degrees F (40 degrees C) avian body
temperature. Indeed, the ideal incubation temperature for
many birds' eggs is about human body temperature, 98.6
degrees F. Almost all birds create the required temperature
by sitting on the eggs and incubating them, often
transferring heat via a temporarily bare area of abdominal
skin called the "brood patch." A few birds, like penguins,
pelicans, and gannets, transfer heat through their webbed
feet. A unique form of incubation is found in the
turkey-like megapodes of Australia. They heat their eggs by
depositing them in a large mound of decaying vegetation,
which the birds have scratched together. By opening and
closing the mound as needed, the birds carefully regulate
the heat of decomposition, which takes the place of the
parental body heat used in normal incubation. On the other hand, the
embryo inside the egg is also very sensitive to high
temperatures, so that in some situations eggs must be
protected from the sun. Ducks with open nests, for example,
will pull downy feathers (originally plucked to form their
brood patches) over the nest to cover the eggs when they
leave it, providing shade if the weather is hot and helping
to retard heat loss when it is cold. Open-nesting ducks
usually have camouflage down that does not reveal the nest's
location; hole-nesting ducks have white down. Other species
may stand over the nest and shade the eggs when temperatures
rise. Killdeer and some other shorebirds soak the feathers
of their bellies and use them to wet the eggs before
shading, thus helping to cool the developing embryos by
evaporative heat loss. Embryos are less sensitive
to cold than to heat, particularly before incubation has
started. Mallard eggs have been known to crack by freezing
and still hatch successfully. Eggs cool when incubation is
interrupted, but this is not usually harmful, and few birds
incubate continuously. Instead egg temperature is regulated
in response to changes in the temperature of the environment
by varying the length of time that a parent bird sits on
them or the tightness of the "sit." For instance, female
House Wrens (which incubate without help from the males) sat
on the eggs for periods averaging 14 minutes when the
temperature was 59 degrees F (15 degrees C), but an average
of only 7.5 minutes when it rose to 86 degrees F (30 degrees
C). Many birds apparently sense
the egg temperature with receptors in the brood patches,
which helps them to regulate their attentiveness (time spent
incubating) more accurately. Since the embryo itself
increasingly generates heat as it develops, periods of
attentiveness should generally decline as incubation
progresses. Attentiveness is also influenced by the
insulating properties of a particular nest. Eggs are also turned
periodically -- from about every eight minutes by American
Redstarts to once an hour by Mallards. The turning
presumably helps to warm the eggs more evenly, and to
prevent embryonic membranes from sticking to the
shell. SEE: Who
Incubates?;
Incubation
Time. Copyright
® 1988 by Paul R. Ehrlich, David S. Dobkin, and Darryl
Wheye.