Penguins lost ability to taste fish
Sensing its biotic and abiotic environmental cues is critical to the survival and reproduction of any organism. Generally vertebrates can recognize sweet, umami, bitter, sour and salty. Genetic analysis shows that the sweet, umami, and bitter tastes have been lost in all penguins.
Zhang and colleagues made the determination after sequencing the genomes for Adelie and emperor penguins. The researchers were surprised that they couldn’t find some basic taste genes, so they took a closer look at penguin DNA. This led the scientists to conclude that all penguin species lack functional genes for the receptors of sweet, umami and bitter tastes.
Sweet, umami and bitter flavors are temperature sensitive. Such taste will not be sensed in cold region. This would be one reason that they lost the gene also. Further it is known fact that penguin is swallowing food, not masticating.
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