Beak abilities
Dec 08, 2018
3 minutes
BY ELDON GREIJ
When birds gave up their teeth and traded their “hands” for wings, obtaining food may have become challenging. But through evolution, birds developed an ingenious assortment of bill shapes to enable them to keep eating.
In my column in the July/August 2018 issue, I described how bills evolved from primitive snouts and what researchers have learned from studying the skulls of modern and ancient birds. Here I give examples of various birds’ bills and how they use them.
have conical bills designed for cracking seeds. Their bill size
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