Intracranial fat bodies and their potential effect on brain composition and behaviour in domestic ducks with feather crests (3 case studies)

Intracranial fat tissue was found in the brains of three crested ducks. The three ducks differed in the size of their crest and in the volume and the location of the fat body within their brains. The duck with the large crest showed a fat body which counts for 19 % of its brain volume. Due to this fat accumulation, brain structures, mainly the cerebellum, were moved laterally. This duck had serious problems in motor coordination. Fat body of the second duck with a middle sized crest was situated in neostriatum and constituted 0,6 % of total brain volume. Additionally this duck displayed an encephalocele. The last duck did show a small crest. Its fat body was found in the area of the tentorium cerebelli and made up 17 % of its brain volume. The later two ducks were not hampered behaviourally.