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The bird with the built-in thermometer
The Mallee Fowl is a ground-dwelling Australian bird which
looks rather like a large pheasant. It builds its own
compost heap to keep its eggs warm!
In the autumn, the male Mallee Fowl digs a hole up to 5m
wide and 1m deep. During the winter, they fill it with
twigs and leaves, scooping a hollow in the top in which the
female will lay her eggs. In spring when it rains, the
vegetation in the nest gets thoroughly soaked and begins to
rot. Like a compost heap, the rotting vegetation heats up!
The male covers the mound with sand to keep it warm. When
the female is ready, she lays her egg on top of the mound,
and the male covers it up again with sand. Throughout the
summer, the female lays up to 35 eggs, one at a time, on the
nest mound. Throughout this time, the male keeps testing
the temperature of the mound by dipping his beak into it.
He makes sure it doesn't get too hot or too cold, by adding
more sand if it is cooling down, or opening up the mound if
it is getting too hot. He cleverly keeps temperature of his
ingenious incubator near a perfect 34 degrees C.
When the chicks hatch, one at a time, they dig their own way
out of the mound and run off to find their own food.
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