A gull drinks seawater but drips brine from its nostrils. Why does the salty liquid come out there?
Show answer & explanation
Answer: Salt glands above the eyes drain to the nose
Salt glands above the eyes drain to the nose ✓ — Correct! The salt glands sit above the eyes, pull sodium chloride from the blood, and send the concentrated fluid toward the nasal cavity. The runny-nose look is a plumbing system that exports salt while saving useful water.
Swallowed seawater comes back up from the stomach — Wrong. The bird is more selective: salt moves from blood into a glandular route near the nostrils. The drip is not just swallowed seawater returning but a small export stream for excess salt.
Sweat glands in the feathers release salt — Wrong. Feathers are not the outlet; paired glands in the skull region do the filtering. The bird is solving desalination, not cooling, by routing salt into a small head-plumbing system.
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