An international team of palaeontologists, which includes the University of Bristol, has discovered that the flying reptiles, pterosaurs, actually had four kinds of feathers, and these are shared with dinosaurs - pushing ...
Archaeology
Dec 17, 2018
2
1504
Iridescence is responsible for some of the most striking visual displays in the animal kingdom. Now, thanks to a new study of feathers from almost 100 modern bird species, scientists have gained new insights into how this ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 10, 2018
0
114
As a birder, I had heard that if you paid careful attention to the head feathers on the downy woodpeckers that visited your bird feeders, you could begin to recognize individual birds. This intrigued me. I even went so far ...
Plants & Animals
Dec 7, 2018
0
11
Chinese researchers have discovered and characterized a sophisticated mechanism in bird feathers that enhances tear resistance, overturning a centuries-old explanation of how bird feathers work. The newly discovered cascaded ...
Condensed Matter
Oct 1, 2018
0
31
Animals' lives tend to follow a quicker tempo as they get farther from the equator—birds at more northern latitudes mature faster, start reproducing younger, and live shorter lives, probably as a way of dealing with seasonal ...
Ecology
Sep 5, 2018
0
1
Parrots—highly intelligent and highly verbal—may also ruffle their head feathers and blush to communicate visually, according to a new study published August 22 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Aline Bertin of the ...
Plants & Animals
Aug 22, 2018
1
37
Not too many people are able to identify birds by examining a single feather. But a number of folks need to know that sort of thing, and it can actually save lives.
Plants & Animals
Feb 27, 2018
0
522
Male blue tits with white cheeks are healthier and more likely to mate with higher quality partners than their counterparts with duller cheek feathers. Having purer white cheeks also indicates that a blue tit was better able ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 6, 2018
0
21
Ancient dinosaurs were adorned in some amazing ways, from the horns of the triceratops to the plates and spikes of the stegosaurus. A newly discovered, bird-like dinosaur fossil from China contains evidence that could add ...
Archaeology
Jan 15, 2018
0
395
A team of U of T Scarborough researchers have described the first known hybrid bird species to be found in the Amazon rainforest.
Plants & Animals
Dec 25, 2017
1
952
