When hatchlings outperform adults: locomotor development in Australian brush turkeys (Alectura lathami, Galliformes)

Abstract

Within Galliformes, megapods (brush turkey, malleefowl, scrubfowl) exhibit unique forms of parental care and growth. Hatchlings receive no post-hatching parental care and exhibit the most exaggerated precocial development of all extant birds, hatching with fully developed, flight-capable forelimbs. Rather than flying up to safety, young birds preferentially employ wing-assisted incline running. Newly hatched Australian brush turkeys (Alectura lathami) are extraordinarily proficient at negotiating all textured inclined surfaces and can flap-walk up inclines exceeding the vertical. Yet, as brush turkeys grow, their forelimb-dependent locomotor performance declines. In an attempt to elucidate how hatchlings perform so well, we analysed hindlimb forces and forelimb kinematics. We measured ground reaction forces (GRFs) for animals spanning the entire growth range (110–2000 g) as they ascended a variably positioned inclined ramp that housed a forceplate. These data are compared with a similar dataset for a chukar partridge (Alectoris chukar) that exhibit a growth strategy typical of most other Galliformes and that demonstrate improved incline performance with increasing age. The brush turkeys' ontogenetic decline in incline running performance is accompanied by loss of traction at steep angles, reduced GRFs and increased wing-loading. We hypothesize that Australian brush turkeys, in contrast to other Galliformes, develop from forelimb-dominated young that exploit a variable terrain (e.g. mound nests, boulders, embankments, cliffs, bushes and trees) into hindlimb-dominated adults dependent on size and running speed to avoid predation.