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 ...

Pterosaurs ruled the air long before birds did, and over more than 100 million years they grew into everything from small ...

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 ...

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 ...

Form—function relationships are one of the pillars of biodiversity. Morphological features have diverged in size and shape among lineages and impart different abilities to interact with the ...

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

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.

At first glance, bats and birds appear remarkably similar. Both dominate the skies, possess wings, and have evolved the ...

Bergmann’s and Allen’s rules state that endotherms should be larger and have shorter appendages in cooler climates. However, the drivers of these rules are not clear. Both rules could be explained by ...