Ducks!

[Bobby]

In psychology today we were talking about ducks and imprinting which led me to have a couple questions about ducks.

1. Why do ducks walk in a straight line?
2. Do ducks walk in a specific order or they just make it up as they go along?
3. Before a duck gets imprinted what happens if you leave it in an empty room would it think that the walls is its mother? Or what if it was blind how would it know who's its mother.

Thanks for reading this questions.

[Laleh]

All the questions you asked I haven't been thought about. Is there any experiment taken about this? I'm eager to know the answer.

[satrohraj]

Good Questions!

I think**

1. Its a way to, not to get lost in a large place
2. It ain't a specific order, they make it up
3. I don't know this

**Don't take these answers as granted. I just expressed my Opinion

[Locus]

1. I thing that they go on the staight line becouse each ather of them look at the next one and go exactly behaind it. So, we see straight line.
3. May be them will think that walls is a mother - imprinting "wright" ferst subject as mother that they see after hatching out.

[CoffeaRobusta]

Well first I have to assume that you are talking about ducklings.

1. Ducks don't always go in an exact straight line. I suggest you observe a lot of duckilings interacting with their mothers, some are side by side, sometimes they are all bunched up. It's more that they all want to follow mom and because of differential abilities (they have different abilities at walking speed and notice that mom is walking away at different times) tend to get streched out when mom is moving fast.
2. My guess is that there is no exact order but get streched out due to differential abilities. There are examples of established hiearchies and rank so I wouldn't rule out older ducklings having something similar. More likely that some are just better at noticing when mom moves away and are faster walkers.
3. Most birds are geared to imprint on certain traits. For waterfowl the important traits are movement and sound. So ducklings will tend to imprint on the obect near them that is both moving and calling. So I doubt it will imprint on a wall, and a blind duck may will still imprint on mom's vocalizations.