Birds take off and land on a wide range of complex surfaces. In contrast, current robots are
limited in their ability to dynamically grasp irregular objects. Leveraging recent findings on …

Social play has been described in many animals. However, much of this social behaviour
among birds, particularly in adults, is still relatively unexplored in terms of the environmental …

Birds provide an interesting opportunity to study the relationships between body size, limb
morphology and bipedal locomotor function. Birds are ecologically diverse and span a large …

Evidence is accumulating for a rapid diversification of birds following the K–Pg extinction.
Recent molecular divergence dating studies suggest that birds radiated explosively during …

Domestic animals are ubiquitous. In contrast to the biodiversity crisis currently impacting
many kinds of animals and plants, not a single domesticated species is endangered …

Living birds (Aves) have bodies substantially modified from the ancestral reptilian condition.
The avian pelvis in particular experienced major changes during the transition from early …

Psittacines, along with corvids, are commonly referred to as 'feathered apes' due to their
advanced cognitive abilities. Until rather recently, the research effort on parrot cognition was …

Beak shape plays a key role in avian radiations and is one of the most intensely studied
aspects of avian evolution and ecology [1–4]. Perhaps no other group is more closely …

The Longipterygidae are a unique clade among the enantiornithines in that they exhibit
elongate rostra (≥ 60% total skull length) with dentition restricted to the distal tip of the …

Limb muscles are remarkably complex and evolutionarily labile. Although their anatomy is of
great interest for studies of the evolution of form and function, their homologies among major …