Tag Archives: birds

Some probe-foraging birds locate their buried prey by detecting vibrations in the substrate using a specialized tactile bill-tip organ. This remarkable ‘sixth sense’ is known as remote touch, and the associated organ is found in probe-foraging species belonging to both the palaeognathous (in kiwi) and neognathous (in ibises and shorebirds) …

Paleontologists have described new fossils of pelagornithid birds from the middle Eocene Submeseta Formation on Seymour Island, Antarctica. An artist’s depiction of ancient albatrosses harassing a pelagornithid as penguins frolic in the oceans around Antarctica 50 million years ago. Image credit: Brian Choo. Pelagornithids are an extinct group of large …