QUICK FACTS
Title: Japanese quail (Coturnix japonica)
The place it lives: Steppes and meadows in Asia, notably China, India, Japan, Korea and Russia. It is also present in Africa and components of Europe. Some populations are migratory.
What it eats: Seeds of grasses, in addition to small bugs and different invertebrates.
Japanese quail are small kin of chickens and turkeys with one very uncommon trait — males produce a singular seminal foam that resembles meringue.
The froth is uncommon amongst birds however turkeys produce an analogous substance.
Japanese quails had been bred in captivity as early because the eleventh century and had been initially stored for his or her melodic songs. However they had been later exploited for his or her meat and eggs.
The tiny birds, which weigh between 3.5 and 10.5 ounces (100 and 300 grams), attain sexual maturity by round 6 weeks and females are prolific egg layers, producing between 250 and 300 per 12 months. Due to this, they’re additionally very well-liked for scientific analysis. And in 1990, they grew to become the first birds to be incubated and hatched in house.
Scientists first seen Japanese quails had uncommon foamy semen within the Fifties, and it has been the topic of analysis ever since. Their distinctive seminal foam is produced throughout mating by the proctodeal gland within the cloaca — the cavity containing each the excretory and reproductive organs — and is assumed to reinforce the probabilities of profitable fertilization of a feminine’s egg.
The froth joins seminal fluid and the sperm itself upon ejaculation. Its bubbly consistency is created by contractions of the muscle mass within the cloaca that amplify the consequences of gases launched by microorganisms within the cavity.
The froth is believed to assist sperm cells mature after they enter the feminine reproductive tract, the place they’re saved for 8 to 11 days earlier than fertilization happens. It might additionally improve the motility of the sperm and shield it from micro organism.
After a profitable insemination, males perform a little strut.
