<div dir="ltr"><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">Peter,</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">
I think your point is an interesting one.</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">
The NewScientist blurb says T1R2 was lost from birds (but retained in lizards). </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">
Now, hummers were just found to use T1R1 for tasting sweet (instead of tasting 'savory' with it, like other vertebrates). </div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">
<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">Liberies is quoted as saying "The re-evolution of sugar receptors may have happened multiple times". So, I'd expect that the authors of the Science paper would agree with you and will very likely search other (sugar eating) bird species for a functional T1Rs (especially T1R1s since part of their cool find is that it has been co-opted for a new function: sweet detection not savory detection). </div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">The loss and regain (or shift in use) of sensory receptor function is cool and occurs in vomeronasal and visual receptors, too. For example, deep sea coelacanths have functional 'visual receptors' (opsins) that have evolved to only a tiny range of light that is visible in deep sea water. They have lost some receptors entirely, like the T1R2 was lost from birds. Shallow-water, sexually selecting guppies however, have a large number of visual color receptors, explaining how the females see all those dramatic tail colors. </div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">Similarly, butterflies have more opsins than bees do, but that might not be news to this list........</div>
<div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">Lisa</div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666">
<br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div><div class="gmail_default" style="font-family:arial,helvetica,sans-serif;color:#666666"><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Aug 22, 2014 at 11:43 AM, Peter Bernhardt <a href="mailto:bernhap2@slu.edu">bernhap2@slu.edu</a> [beemonitoring] <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:beemonitoring-noreply@yahoogroups.com" target="_blank">beemonitoring-noreply@yahoogroups.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
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<p></p><div dir="ltr">The following link will take you to a popular article on the evolution and genetics of taste buds on a hummingbird's tongue. The article insists that most birds have lost the ability to taste the sweetness in foods. I'm not so sure I agree. What about all those fruit eating species in so many families as well as nectar drinking birds in the Meliphagidae, Nectarinidae, Zosteropidae etc.? <div>
<br></div><div><a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26089-hummingbirds-turned-savoury-into-sweet-to-taste-nectar.html#.U_diqFb5gTs" target="_blank">http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn26089-hummingbirds-turned-savoury-into-sweet-to-taste-nectar.html#.U_diqFb5gTs</a><br>
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</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div dir="ltr"><font face="verdana, sans-serif" color="#999999">Lisa Horth, PhD<br>Haupt Fellow</font><div><font face="verdana, sans-serif" color="#999999">Smithsonian Gardens</font></div>
<div><font face="verdana, sans-serif" color="#999999">Washington DC</font></div><div><font face="verdana, sans-serif" color="#999999">(202) 633-5849</font></div><div><font face="verdana, sans-serif" color="#999999"> &<br>
</font><div><font face="verdana, sans-serif" color="#999999">Associate Professor<br>Dept of Biological Science<br>Old Dominion University<br>Norfolk, VA 23529</font></div></div><div><font color="#999999" face="verdana, sans-serif"><a href="mailto:lhorth@odu.edu" target="_blank">lhorth@odu.edu</a></font></div>
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