A paper published last year in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface described a feather as a masterpiece of engineering, one comprising nine orders of magnitude, from the nanoscale to the meter ...

Contrary to our human perception of bird coloration as extraordinarily diverse, a new study reports that bird plumages exhibit only a small fraction (less than a third) of the possible colours birds ...

Birds boast some of the most vibrant colors among terrestrial animals. Our pretty avian friends have inspired our Democrat and Chronicle photographers for years and captured the imaginations of many ...

Quick Take Vulturine guinea fowl’s blue and white plumage comes from feather structure, not pigments, creating vivid, long-distance visual signals. Bright colors and high-contrast patterns help ...

A Fork-tailed Flycatcher. Credit: Valentina Gómez-Bahamón, Field Museum Bird feathers have many different functions. Softer down keeps a bird warm and stiffer wing feathers are used for flight.

We’re exploring the enchanting world of birds, focusing on their fascinating mating rituals. Some birds perform elaborate dances and sing melodious songs, while others display striking plumage, build ...

Researchers found that the iridescent shimmer that makes birds such as peacocks and hummingbirds so striking is rooted in an evolutionary tweak in feather nanostructure that has more than doubled the ...

One of the remarkable abilities that birds possess is their ability to regenerate the feathers that they shed. Unlike human ...