Brood patch
patch of featherless skin
A brood patch, also known as an incubation patch in older literature, is an area of featherless skin on the underside of birds that exists during the nesting season. Feathers act as inherent insulators and prevent efficient incubation, to which brood patches are the solution. This patch of skin is well supplied with blood vessels at the surface, enabling heat transfer to the eggs when incubating.
Location
The positions of brood patches can vary. Many have a single brood patch in the middle of the belly, while some shorebirds have one patch on each side of the belly. Great Auks and Razorbills develop two brood patches on the side of the body. Gulls and Galliformes may have three brood patches. American kestrels develop three brood patches.
Pelicans, boobies, and gannets do not develop brood patches but cradle the eggs on their feet. Brood parasitic cuckoos do not develop brood patches.
The public source identifies “Brood patch” as patch of featherless skin. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Brood, patch and featherless.
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This entry incorporates text from “Brood patch” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.