Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Feather variations. Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates [1][2] and an example of a complex evolutionary novelty. [3] They are among the characteristics ...
This was the second time that Malcolm had been tarred and feathered. Tarring and feathering is a form of public torture where a victim is stripped naked, or stripped to the waist, while wood tar (sometimes hot) is either poured or painted onto the person. The victim then either has feathers thrown on them or is rolled around on a pile of ...
Birds "of a feather" (in this case red-winged blackbirds) exhibiting flocking behavior, source of the idiom. Birds of a feather flock together is an English proverb. The meaning is that beings (typically humans) of similar type, interest, personality, character, or other distinctive attribute tend to mutually associate.
The top, or upper, side of a bird's wing. [ 433 ]Compare: underwing. uropygial gland. Also, preen gland; oil gland. A gland found at the rump, at the base of the tail that produces a waxy secretion made up of oils, fatty acids, fats and water that the majority of birds use in daily preening of their feathers.
Down feather. Down feathers lack the interlocking barbules of pennaceous feathers, making them very soft and fluffy. The down of birds is a layer of fine feathers found under the tougher exterior feathers. Very young birds are clad only in down. Powder down is a specialized type of down found only in a few groups of birds.
Plumage. Plumage (from Latin pluma 'feather') is a layer of feathers that covers a bird and the pattern, colour, and arrangement of those feathers. The pattern and colours of plumage differ between species and subspecies and may vary with age classes. Within species, there can be different colour morphs.
Preening is a maintenance behaviour found in birds that involves the use of the beak to position feathers, interlock feather barbules that have become separated, clean plumage, and keep ectoparasites in check. Feathers contribute significantly to a bird's insulation, waterproofing and aerodynamic flight, and so are vital to its survival.
Red kite (Milvus milvus) in flight, showing remiges and rectrices. Flight feathers (Pennae volatus) [1] are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird; those on the wings are called remiges (/ ˈ r ɛ m ɪ dʒ iː z /), singular remex (/ ˈ r iː m ɛ k s /), while those on the tail are called rectrices (/ ˈ r ɛ k t r ...