Discovery of new bird species in China, oldest beak shows evolution complexity
...herswere asymmetric. Barbs on one side of its wing feather quills clearly grewlonger than barbs on the other side. "Some other scientists had speculated that Confusciusornis was aground-living predator whose beak may have been hooked like a hawk, and thisrestoration was recently featured as a cover o......ast three years collecting and analyzing blood and feather samplesfrom three species--Wilson's warbler, Swain...rovided theresearch team with more than a thousand feather samples collected from breedinggrounds throughout the U.S. and Canada. After extracting DNA from the...Cowbirds' winning songs reflect brainpower
...birds attract females by strutting their masculine feather colors or by their singing ability. But the Cornell scientists have found that both songs and mating rituals correlate with the size of the cowbird brain. "The female cowbirds are looking only for your genes, so that if you're a male cowbird, you h...Ancient fossil shows earliest feathers, may end argument about birds' origin
...ers were asymmetric. Barbs on one side of its wing feather quills grew significantly longer than barbs on the other side, which is characteristic of modern flying birds, he observed. Barbs on either side of the quills of flightless birds are nearly symmetrical. "The most bird-like of the dinosaurs, such as...Feathers on reptile older than dinosaurs, reported in Science
...dern feathers first develop inside a tube called a feather sheath and then unfurl as the feather grows. The Longisquama fossil shows a new feather that seems to be developing in the same manner. ...Ancient tick found in New Jersey leaves experts guessing
... feasting on birds. And a small feather (7.5 mm, or 0.3 inches) f... outcrop of amber. "Finding this feather suggests that the tick might have traveled to North America on a seabird," ...Fragmentation linked to stress in birds
... food. In fact, fragmentation may not even affect feather growth directly. Rather, less robust birds may be more likely to end up in undesirable habitats like fragments. This is supported by the finding that manakins were rarely recaptured in fragments, implying that they had grown their feathers in continu...Study of aquatic bird genes reveals surprising relationships and evolutionary history
...ebbed feet--traditionally used to group birds of a feather into different flocks on the bird family tree--did not appear just once during the history of bird evolution, as had been the hallmark assumption of the traditional classification system. Instead, the study suggests such structures evolved repeatedl...Study of flamingo genes reveals surprising family tree
...ebbed feet--traditionally used to group birds of a feather into different flocks on the bird family tree--did not appear just once during the history of bird evolution, as had been the hallmark assumption of the traditional classification system. Instead, the study suggests such structures evolved repeatedl...Science study explains the sexy glow of parrot plumage
...the birds, rather than a simple byproduct of their feather coloring....Chemical evidence proves the old adage, Birds of a feather flock together
...hat of the foods and water consumed at the time of feather growth, Chamberlain wrote. In fact, previous studies showed that isotope levels in warbler feathers directly mirrored those found in the environment that is, the carbon 13: carbon 12 ratio in plants and insects consumed by warblers decreased in nor...Neighborhood socioeconomic status affects diversity of birds in parks, study finds
BLACKSBURG, Va., Sept. 9, 2002 -- Birds of a feather not only flock together, but they flock to richer neighborhoods. People living in higher socioeconomic areas are likely to see a wider diversity of bird species in their parks, according to Paige S. Warren, who holds a joint appointment as a research...Geneticists tell ostrich farmers the secrets of sex
...armers and less stressful for the birds to collect feather samples. The procedure involves a genetic technique known as the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which can "amplify" fragments of DNA that are specific to male or female ostriches. The researchers used their technique to sex-type 96 five-day-old ostr...USC scientists uncover secrets of feather formation
...and will be available as of October 30, 2002. "The feather is one of the best research models you can find fo...e grammar, to form an organ. But unlike a gland, a feather really lays everything right out there for you." The question of what makes a feather a feather has ...Bright beaks provide honest look at male immune system, Science study says
...ds. This kind of information is not available from feather color, because pigments in sex-signaling plumage are only allocated to feathers once or twice a year during molt events," said Faivre. Faivre speculated that carotenoid-based signals may have evolved because they are honest signals of individual qual...Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution scientists respond to Buzzards Bay oil spill
...lude weighing animals, taking temperatures, taking feather and swab samples for analysis, giving medications and feeding via intubation. The Institution, part of the Cape Cod Stranding Network, has a computerized tomographic or CT 2D/3D scanner, similar to those found at Massachusetts General Hospital, th...Isotopes from feathers reveal bird migration
...te. In essence, every bird that is captured for a feather sample is equivalent to a band recovery, Duxbury says. "Essentially, it's not as good as getting a band return, which gives you A to B," says Duxbury. "You can't say exactly where a bird's origin was, but you can narrow it down to a region. For inst...Bird 'breathalyzer' helps assess migratory diet
...eline for migrating birds. "The signature in the feather tells us what the bird ate on its breeding grounds...gray catbirds in nets, and takes breath, blood and feather samples before releasing the birds back into the wild. His results so far have been insightful and h......hanging size of a parasite's environment the bird feather can cause new species of lice to form," Clayton s...sted that idea by cutting a small, square piece of feather from each wing of several rock pigeons. On one wing, she used fabric glue to transplant a piece of f...