News Animals

Here’s how honeyeaters and other birds thrive on sugary diets

DNA tweaks let birds that eat nectar or fruit manage their metabolism and blood pressure

A black, white and yellow bird known as a honeyeater perches on a flower.

The New Holland honeyeater is a nectar-sipping bird from Australia. It can thrive on its sickeningly sweet diet due to genetic adaptations, changing the way its body responds to sugar.

© Gerald Allen

By Bethany Brookshire

To eat a sugar-filled diet, birds had to evolve some sweet genetic tricks.

Birds that feed on nectar and fruits have important variants in genes that control metabolism, fat processing and even blood pressure.