Female tanager birds dig flamboyant males. So to build plumage that really pops with orange or red or yellow, a male has to eat fruits and absorb their carotenoids. The fancy feathers he produces then ...

The iridescent shimmer that makes birds such as peacocks and hummingbirds so striking is rooted in a natural nanostructure so complex that people are only just beginning to replicate it ...

The eastern bluebird is a special bird. The blue of its feathers is unique. However, this colour is not based on pigments but on the special structure of the feather. Viewed under the microscope, the ...

The male desert sandgrouse might not be much to look at, but his belly feathers give him the unique ability to absorb and carry water. Researchers have, for the first time, closely examined the ...

BRAINERD — I was hunkered in a blind I had placed along the edge of field when a magnificent tom turkey walked into view a mere 50 feet away. I “yelped” softly on a diaphragm turkey call, and ...

More than 99% of birds can fly. But that still leaves many species that evolved to be flightless, including penguins, ...

Sometime in the future, the water bottle you carry on a run, or the nasal swab you brave at the health center, could be inspired by the feathers of an African desert fowl. [Image: Johns Hopkins ...

The raven-size creature long thought of as the earliest bird, Archaeopteryx, may have been adorned with black feathers, researchers have found. The structures that held the black pigment may have ...

Each Canada goose that you see flying around in formation around Lancaster County these days has between 20,000 and 25,000 feathers, most hidden from sight. A typical songbird at your backyard feeder ...

The researchers found an evolutionary tweak in feather nanostructure that has more than doubled the range of iridescent colors birds can display. This insight could help researchers understand how and ...

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 ...