Migratory birds are specially adapted to find their way over extreme distances that represent remarkable tests of endurance. Now, researchers have discovered an unexpected way that migratory birds ...

"The introductory chapters give a detailed overview of the feather - how feathers developed, the parts of a single feather, and the variety of types of feathers on a bird. In the feather ...

Explore the colors of songbird migration in a photo essay that displays the ways distance and timing affect plumage. In late summer and autumn, millions of birds fly above our heads, often at night, ...

Charles Darwin is most famous for his finches, from whose beaks he gleaned the idea that a single species might radiate into many. But he studied other attributes of birds, too—like the rhythmic ...

The fossilized head crest of a pterosaur with evidence of feathers. Cincotta, A. et al. Nature (2022) Paleontologists studying a well-preserved head crest belonging to a species of pterosaurs say the ...

More than 99% of birds can fly. But that still leaves many species that evolved to be flightless, including penguins, ostriches, and kiwi birds. In a new study in the journal Evolution, researchers ...

Fossilized feathers of an extinct bird show it molted differently than modern birds. The prehistoric bird lost its feathers all at once, while many modern birds molt in waves. Regrowing feathers uses ...

“Awkward” would probably be the most benevolent word I could use to describe the explosive launch into flight of the California quail. Certainly, the words graceful or athletic do not come to mind.