Toucan's Beak

The toucan's bill, 1/3rd its body, has been theorized to attracted mates, peel fruits or for territorial defense. A new report says the beak acts like a radiator since birds don’t sweat. When a toucan needs to cool, its beak heats up. The beak's surface area allows heat to quickly dissipate; for example, when a toucan lowers its body temperature in preparation for sleep, it cools 10°C in minutes. When outside temperatures rose, the bill heated up, but the bird’s core body temperature did not.

Birds and Bugs Fly the Same

Scientists studied 7 different kinds of winged animals - bugs to birds - and found they all used "flapping counter-torque" to turn. When a bird or bug turns right, its left wing moves faster on the downstroke while the right is faster on the upstroke, slowing the animal’s rotation. Whatever their size, animals with a similar wingspan to body length ratio need the same number of flaps to finish a turn.

Diet of Bones

Bearded vultures, or "Lammergeiers", are scavengers like other vultures. But they are unique amongst vultures because 90% of the bearded vulture's diet consists of the bones of carrion, not the flesh. It eats chunks of bone as big as a human fist in one gulp to partake of the nutritious bone marrow. Its stomach acid pH is unknown at this point, but is believed to be as extreme as that of other vultures - hovering around a pH of 1.

The Journal of Raptor Research notes that bearded vultures can digest bone within 24 hours and the high presence of acid-secreting cells is what allows for the different diet of bearded vultures with that of other vultures.

See it attack and eat

Raven Defies Natural Selection

National Geographic presents an experiment in which a raven is put on a branch while its food is hung from a string. Researchers wanted to see if the raven could think through the process and pull the string up to itself to obtain the food.

It did.

The problem is that:

1) The behavior was not learned as the researchers did not teach the raven the skill
2) Natural Selection does not provide the answer as the scenario would not have occurred in the wild
3) Chance could not provide the answer because there were too many individual steps

Thus, the ability to actively think through solving this problem must be an innate quality. But for a bird without a cerebral cortex - instrumental in creative thought - to perform such a function is nothing short of magical.

Aesop's Fable - A Reality

Aesop tells the story of a thirsty crow who comes upon a pitcher with water that is beyond its reach. The crow uses pebbles to raise the water level and gets his drink. It was just a fable ... until last year.

Current Biology reports that 4 captive rooks (similar to a crow) were forced to decide how to raise the water level so that a floating worm was reachable. All 4 rooks solved the problem with precisely the number of stones needed. 3 rapidly learned to use large stones over small ones and understood that sawdust cannot be manipulated in the same manner as water.

The discovery is mind-blowing. It furthers the notion that tool usage is a flexible ability in animals, and holds implications for the evolution of tool use and animal cognition. It also demonstrates certain animals' ability to solve complex physical problems via causal and analogical reasoning. For the rook to do this without a cerebral cortex - instrumental for creative thought - leaves one in awe.

See video #1 & #2 of the study

1st Poisonous Bird

The Hooded Pitohui is the world's first discovered poisonous bird. It uses a neurotoxin (specifically homobatrachotoxin), found in its skin and feathers, to induce numbness and tingling to anything that comes into contact with the bird. The bird's toxin is, gram for gram, the most poisonous on earth.

The poison dart frog possesses the exact same poison as the hooded pitohui, leading many to reason the source of the poison is the Choresine beetle - part of both animals diet.

Intelligent Design

Current Biology has argued that British backyard bird feeders have caused a split in central European blackcap warblers into 2 distinct populations that may become separate species. The finding is incredible as evolution usually takes eons, while this has occurred in less than 30 generations.

The bird feeders are serving a crucial role - for 1 species to diverge into 2, a physical separation is needed so the 2 populations can breed independently and evolve differently. Warblers migrate in the winter and routes are genetically determined. The population studied has historically wintered in Spain. Those flying north died from lack of food in barren winter landscapes.

Bird feeders basically changed the ecosystem, giving warblers an incentive to stay in England during the winter. Also, the birds flight back home in central Europe is several hundred miles shorter than a trip back from Spain, so British migrators immediately begin breeding on their return.

A genetic split has occurred, results already visible in the birds’ anatomy - difference in wing and beak structure and even dietary preferences

How BIG an impact have these bird feeders had? Well, bird feeders are now doing the job mountains, oceans, etc. normally do.

Birds SEE Magnetic Fields When Migrating

Migratory birds have been long known to be able to detect magnetic fields to help navigate their annal routes. The mechanism itself, however, was a mystery. Nature Magazine has published a study revealing that the European robin can actually SEE magnetic fields through the use of proteins situated in the eye's light-sensitive cells! The study also disproved the theory that iron-based cells in the birds’ beaks were the reason for detecting magnetic fields.

Copycat

Humans have long been mimicking other sounds of animate and inanimate things. In the hopes of attracting a mate the lyre bird, however, can copy the sounds of virtually anything it can hear - other animals, a camera, a chainsaw, a car alarm.

Check out the video.