Anting is a maintenance behavior during which birds rub insects, usually ants, on their feathers and skin. The bird may pick up the insects in its bill and rub them on the body (active anting), or the bird may lie in an area of high density of the insects and perform dust bathing-like movements (passive anting). The insects secrete liquids containing chemicals such as formic acid, which can act as an insecticide, miticide, fungicide, or bactericide. Alternatively, anting could make the insects edible by removing the distasteful acid, or, possibly supplement the bird's own preen oil. Instead of ants, birds can also use garlic snails, amphipods, millipedes, dermapterans, caterpillars, grasshoppers, hemipterans, mealworm larvae, and wasps. More than 200 species of bird are known to ant.
20 common birds that ant
Ruffed Grouse
Wild Turkey
Great Horned Owl
Northern Flicker
Cedar Waxwing
Northern Mockingbird
Gray Catbird
Veery
Wood Thrush
American Robin
Golden-crowned Kinglet
Dark-eyed Junco
Song Sparrow
Northern Cardinal
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
Baltimore Oriole
Red-winged Blackbird
House Sparrow
American Crow
Common Raven
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