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Most birds have approximately 175 different muscles, mainly controlling the wings, skin, and legs. Overall, the muscle mass of birds is concentrated ventrally. The largest muscles in the bird are the pectorals, or the pectoralis major, which control the wings and make up about 15–25% of a flighted bird's body weight.
In birds, the propatagium is the elastic fold of skin extending from the shoulder to the carpal joint, making up the leading edge of the inner wing. Many authors use the term to describe the fold of skin between the body (behind the shoulder) and the elbow that houses the outer segments of the latissimus dorsi caudalis and triceps scapularis ...
Anatomical structures on the head and throat of a domestic turkey. 1. Caruncles, 2. Snood, 3. Wattle (dewlap), 4. Major caruncle, 5. Beard. A caruncle is defined as 'a small, fleshy excrescence that is a normal part of an animal's anatomy'. [1]
The bird on the left is pushing its head towards its uropygial gland. White-winged crossbill (Loxia leucoptera) extracting preen oil from its uropygial gland. The uropygial gland secretes an oil (preen oil) through the dorsal surface of the skin via a grease nipple-like nub or papilla. [6]
A bare patch of skin that most female birds gain during the nesting season for thermoregulation purposes, by shedding feathers close to the belly, in an area that will be in contact with the eggs during incubation. The patch of bare skin is well supplied with blood vessels at the surface, facilitating heat transfer to the eggs.
More generally, it can be any hanging mass of skin, such as a fold of loose skin on an elderly person's neck, or the wattle of a bird. Dewlaps can be considered as a caruncle , defined as "a small, fleshy excrescence that is a normal part of an animal's anatomy".
Feather development occurs in the epidermal layer of the skin in birds. It is a complicated process involving many steps. Once the feathers are fully developed, there are six different types of feathers: contour, flight, down, filoplumes, semiplumes, and bristle feathers. Feathers were not originally meant for flight.
Contour feathers are not uniformly distributed on the skin of the bird except in some groups such as the penguins, ratites and screamers. [29] In most birds the feathers grow from specific tracts of skin called pterylae; between the pterylae there are regions which are free of feathers called apterylae (or apteria). Filoplumes and down may ...