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| King penguin. Credit: Jianzhi "George" Zhang |
Penguins apparently can't enjoy or even detect the savoury
taste of the fish they eat or the sweet taste of fruit.
A new analysis of genetic evidence reported in the Cell Press journal Current Biology this week suggests that penguins have lost three of the five basic
tastes over evolutionary time. For them, it appears, food comes in only two
flavours: salty and sour.
Many other birds can't taste sweet things either. But they
do have receptors for detecting bitter and umami (or meaty) flavours.
"Penguins eat fish, so you would guess that they need
the umami receptor genes, but for some reason they don't have them," said
Jianzhi "George" Zhang of the University of Michigan, one of the
authors of the study.
"These findings are surprising and puzzling, and we do
not have a good explanation for them. But we have a few ideas."
