A new study has revealed how vultures use their very own social networks to work out the best way to use thermal updrafts to help them fly vast distances.
Plants & Animals
Nov 7, 2018
0
82
Inspired by the beauty and flying ability of birds, Leonardo da Vinci strived centuries ago to create a human-powered flapping-wing flying machine. But his designs, which da Vinci explored in his Codex on the Flight of Birds, ...
Engineering
Oct 25, 2018
0
6
Although Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519) is known to have studied bird flight, few people realise that he was the first to document flight maneuvers, now called dynamic soaring. Birds use these maneuvers to extract energy from ...
Other
Oct 10, 2018
0
13
A newly identified extinct bird species from a 127 million-year-old fossil deposit in northeastern China provides new information about avian development during the early evolution of flight.
Archaeology
Sep 24, 2018
4
163
A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that small birds migrating from Scandinavia to Africa in the autumn occasionally fly as high as 4,000 metres above sea level—probably adjusting their flight to take advantage ...
Ecology
Aug 7, 2018
0
10
Computer simulations of peregrine falcon attacks show that the extreme speeds reached during dives from high altitudes enhance the raptors' ability to execute maneuvers needed to nab agile prey that would otherwise escape. ...
Plants & Animals
Apr 12, 2018
0
147
The question of whether the Late Jurassic dino-bird Archaeopteryx was an elaborately feathered ground dweller, a glider, or an active flyer has fascinated palaeontologists for decades. Valuable new information obtained with ...
Archaeology
Mar 13, 2018
0
413
The flight speed of birds is more complex than research has previously managed to show. In a new study from Lund University in Sweden, researchers have found that birds use multiple – each one simple yet effective—methods ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 13, 2017
0
8
Many animals will sound an alarm to alert other members of their group of impending danger. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology on November 9 have shown that crested pigeons do this in a surprisingly non-vocal way. ...
Plants & Animals
Nov 9, 2017
1
71
It's a depressingly familiar sight when an oil well blows or a tanker runs aground: thousands of stranded, helpless animals wallowing in cloying crude oil. 'Birds are often used as the poster children for the deadly effects ...
Plants & Animals
Jul 5, 2017
0
1
