Dear colleagues, My co-authors and I are trying to survey which species of birds masturbate for a phylogenetic analysis. There is a pretty good literature on masturbation in mammals, but hardly anything on birds. As there are several theories about why masturbation has evolved, we would be extremely grateful if anyone who is very familiar with behaviour in a particular bird species would be willing to complete the following survey and send it back to me at: t.price@liverpool.ac.uk Many thanks, and sorry for the unusual request. Tom Price, University of Liverpool Questionnaire about masturbation in birds What we want to know: Please tell us about any bird species you have seen masturbate, or any species where you are reasonably confident you would have observed masturbation if it occurred regularly in that species. If you are expert in multiple species, it would be great if you would tell us about as many of them as you can, using multiple sheets if you want, or focus on the species you are most confident about. Feel free to answer N/A or “don’t know” to any of the questions below. The behaviour we are looking for: We define masturbation as a bird having sex with an inanimate object or their own body (e.g. beak). Birds typically masturbate by rubbing their cloaca against an inanimate object, often a rock, branch, or something in their cage. This may lead to ejaculation in males. Species of bird: Have you observed masturbation by a bird of this species (Y/N)? If not, how confident are you that you would have seen it if it occurred (very/fairly/not very/not confident)? If you did see masturbation in this species: What was the sex of the birds that masturbated (M/F/both)? Approximately how many individuals of this species have you seen masturbate? Were they in captivity (captive/wild)? Were they solitary (alone/with same sex/with opposite sex/with both sexes)? Were they hand reared (hand/parent)? Were they adult (juvenile/adult)? Do you consider the bird(s) to have been in good condition (good/bad)? Are there any other details you think we should know? Please forward your questionnaire or any questions to: Dr Tom Price: t.price@liverpool.ac.uk Tom Price Institute of Integrative Biology Biosciences Building, Crown Street University of Liverpool Liverpool L69 7ZB +44 151 795 4523 http://bit.ly/14D6GuD http://bit.ly/1xKSfyh “Price, Thomas”via Gmail