Bird wing shape -- a proxy for long-distance flying ability, or dispersal -- is a trait that influences biodiversity patterns on islands around the world, according to biologists. You can know a lot ...

You can know a lot of things about birds just by the shape of their wings. A seafaring albatross, stretching out its sail-like airfoils, lives a very different life from a ground-dwelling antpitta ...

Among the roughly 10,000 known bird species on Earth, only one family can sustain true backward flight. Hummingbirds achieve ...

For centuries, scientists have observed that animals in warmer climates have longer limbs—a pattern known as Allen's Rule. Long attributed to the need to maintain body temperature, the precise ...

Bird physiology is conducive to flight: small size, hollow bones, and generally symmetrical feathers on the wings and tail. It seems like a no-brainer that bird evolution was optimized for flight, but ...

Climate change is shrinking our birds. Birds in both North and South America are getting smaller as the planet warms, and the smallest-bodied species are changing the fastest, a study reported Monday.

Certain air sacs have evolved in multiple lineages of soaring birds, and it emerges that these probably function to reduce the force required from the major flight muscles as they hold the wings in ...