Biologists described Wednesday a strange bird that spins for its supper and said they had figured out how its unique fishing method works.
Phalaropes - a type of sandpiper found widely in the United States, Europe and the Arctic - are known to spin round rapidly in the water, but zoologists were not sure why.However, William Hamner of the University of California at Los Angeles and a team of international colleagues found the birds create a vortex that sucks up their plankton prey.
"Phalaropes kick water away at the surface so rapidly that the water surface is depressed and deeper water flows upward to replace it," they wrote in the science journal Nature.
The birds work fast, spinning about once each second, pecking rapidly at the surface the whole time. "Phalaropes detect prey, thrust, seize, transport and swallow in less than half a second, at a rate of 180 pecks per minute," they added.