Talk:Feather

Feather Color

There are some newer studies that suggest that feather color in birds evolved over time to match the plant species that they were living amongst. This study also talks about how birds view colors and it links the visual aspect of birds and how they visually adsorb color.

I found an interesting study where they found that plumage was also associated with nest height and geographical area.

Something that could be added to the plumage section is that some studies have shown that barred pattern in feathers is more common in females than males and is mostly used for camouflage, while mottled feathers were found to be most used in signaling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cain.209 (talk • contribs) 23:42, 1 October 2014 (UTC)

References

Feather category

The Feathers category is a bit of a joke. Every article within it is a stub, and there aren't particually that many of them. I think they should all be merged into feather, or at least a new "types of feathers" article, and should form a key part of the proposed series for bird anatomy. Or at least thats what I think. Anyone else agree? mastodon 01:26, 27 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see reference made to the different classifications of feathers such as primary flights, secondary flights, under tail coverts, etc.

Plumage

I have changed plumage from being a redirect to feather and created a new article instead. The two are related but different. Considering that there are 150 links to plumage from bird articles it's perhaps overdue. Feel free to help with the article I'm working on. Sabine's Sunbird talk 22:31, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

External Links

User keeps adding link to "theafricangrayparrot.com" from this and many other bird pages. Removing link and recommend checking to see that it stays removed; user in this case is adding a link to a commercial page/forum as a reference, when all information on the linked page is paraphrased from a publication. This is not only spam advertising and a bad link, it is plagiarism. DrNixon 05:00, 1 November 2006 (UTC)

How are Feathers made?

Nothing in this article tells me how feathers grow on the bird, and that they are, in fact, vascularized and clipping a bird's feathers too close will sever blood vessels.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.208.160.122 (talk • contribs)

Thank you for your suggestion. When you feel an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the edit this page link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes — they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills. New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to). WLU 11:37, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Too expand on this, the entire article seems like stubs strung together to make the article look normal. It barely describes much of anything and just reads as the first setnences from various paragraphs.

I'd take your advice and edit but previous experience in months gone by has shown that's risky in of itself due to the "touchyness" of wikipedians. (A valid fish article I started up from scratch and taged it stub so it can grow instead got instantly marked for speedy deletion and the talk page was filled with scolding is one example.)

Though if things changed where there's more wikipeople like you around I might get around to it later. --199.227.86.10 15:28, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

I would like to request a link to our Downmark web site.

Our web address is: www.downmark.com

We are an Industry association: The Down Association of Canada

Please consider adding a link to our web site.

Thank you, Carolyn LaPorte Research & Information Officer Down Association of Canada

Downmark 18:17, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Feather evolution

There is a new article with evidence that feathers evolved from scales. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18285280 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.92.96.79 (talk) 17:03, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Will have to wait and see how the paleontological evidence is interpreted by others. Have toned down the statements to be less than categorical for now. Shyamal (talk) 16:54, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

Minority views in intro

Given how minority the view that birds did not evolve from dinosaurs is, should it really be mentioned in the intro? I think it gives an entirely undue level of prominence to these views JackAidley (talk) 13:16, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Growth and development

Probably needs a separate section on the growth and development of feathers. Snowman (talk) 16:38, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Father disambig?

Does there really have to be a "Not to be confused with Father" disambiguation? Seems nutsy and unlikely that such confusion would exist. It's more like a spelling mistake than two homonyms that might actually be confused. Unless there is some objection, I'll remove it. Bob98133 (talk) 16:24, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, it does look out of place, and I'd be inclined to remove it, even though it's a safe bet that people do make keyboard errors, or even misspellings, and end up on this page. However, if they have a modicum of intellect, they'd realise this wasn't the page they were after.

A thought does occur to me as I write, which is that I wonder if dyslexics sometimes make this sort of mistake. Suppose you had that condition. Suppose that you can recognise when you have made an error, and you can recognise the correct spelling when you encounter it, but for the life of you, you just couldn't get the spelling right yourself, resulting in repitition of the error ad infinitum. A link to the the right page would be a very welcome thing in such circumstances. Does this occur? I don't know. Do dyslexics encounter problems that us non-dyslexics have difficulty perceiving? Unquestionably. Will there be research on the matter? IF it is a commonly occurring problem, there will most definitely be research out there. Indeed, a search for what does commonly occur will help provide answers to the above.

Regarding the link in question, the first thing I would do is to check the revision history of the article to determine who put it there. I would then check the contribution history of that editor to see what sort of contributions said editor has made. I am typically looking for patterns of constructive or destructive contributions. Constructive contributors can do odd, or odd-appearing things, or even controversial things. But sometimes the exercise answers the question without further ado, if one encounters a clear history of vandalism or other anti-social behaviours. Either way, the exercise is typically worth doing. Wotnow (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

I see the "Father" disambig has now been removed, which is just as well. For what it's worth, I see it was placed on 9 January 2010. I'll leave you to check the editors contributions and talk page. Wotnow (talk) 20:35, 20 July 2010 (UTC)

Self-correction

Greetings. After saving this message, I'll save a correction in the article, to an error created by me, in my edit of 7 July 2010. On perusing the article, and finding that the link took me to an edit page, I wondered if it was error or vandalism. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that I placed the link there! Disappointment because I know better. The main strategy when doing updates is: preview the bloody thing, and check the links. If all seems well, save the bloody thing and then check again. Clearly I didn't do that for this particular reference, for which I apologise. As to how the error arose, knowing how I work, there is only one possibility. I had a few windows open, and copied the url from the wrong one! Wotnow (talk) 22:29, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

Preening

There is not much in the article about preening. I think that it should have a section for "preening". The Pecten (biology) should be included as an aid to preen feathers. Snowman (talk) 15:00, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree. I'm working (on and off) on a preening article specifically about birds (preening currently redirects to an article largely about human grooming) and will try to summarize what I write in a section for this article. MeegsC | Talk 15:32, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

I thought of this when I saw photographs of an Australian Pelican preening. Preen is now a dab, which would move to "Preen (disambiguation)", if an article "Preen" was made. Snowman (talk) 17:19, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Removed from evolution section

The foregoing hypothesis are all convincing but they reflect a succeeding functional adaptation on a series of complex traits which ab ovo origin could be explained by a metabolic theory. Feathers are made of protein and are energetically costly. They contain substantial amounts of certain amino acids, especially cysteine. The protein complex at the base of the composition of the feather is keratin, which has disulfide bonds between amino acids that confer unique properties of stability and elasticity. The metabolism of amino acids containing sulphur proteins proved to be toxic to the organism. If the sulphur amino acids are not catabolized at the final products of urea or uric acid but used for the synthesis of keratin instead, the release of hydrogen sulfide is extremely reduced or avoided. For an organism whose metabolism works at high internal temperatures of 40°C or greater can be extremely important to prevent the excess production of hydrogen sulfide. The regular feather moult could be interpreted as a pathway for the excretion of nitrogen and sulphuric amino acids resulting from the energetic surplus derived from a rich animal protein diet, especially if it is made by arthropods. Vertebrates have used the excretion through the skin from their origin and formation of keratin may have been induced by the need to remove sulphuric amino acids. Some vertebrates such as certain frogs change their skin every night and our own skin is constantly renewed by the continuous loss of small particles of keratin. The change from the simple production of keratin to the feather formation, however, requires a number of adaptations. During the evolution of the lineage of dinosaurs that led to origin of birds the need for high levels of energy to maintain high internal temperature and high metabolic efficiency appeared. Modern birds maintain a high metabolic rate, burning fat which are the main source of energy during the run and sustained flight. Proteins are a difficult source of energy because of their heterogeneous composition that can not easily be reduced to carbon dioxide and water and its excess would be redirected in the process of binding formation between amino acids involved in the keratin production. Later on, these structures have evolved in the need for regulation of body temperature, and only later they have proved useful for the development of the ability to fly Reichholf, J. H. (1996). "Die Feder, die Mauser und der Urspring der Vögel. Ein neure Sicht zur Evolution der Vöge". Archaeopteryx. 1427 (38)..

Not sure what to make of this material and reference in German - if there is a wider review of this aspect perhaps it can be reintroduced but with proper tone. Shyamal (talk) 16:40, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm agree with your caution due to the fact the probably you can't find an on-line version of the above mentioned paper. Besides I'm sure it is not a problem concerning a german reference... I've got one copy sent me directly by the author, that I used for my Ph.D. thesis. You can find evidence of this theory in a more recent paper http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/40/4/478.full published by Oxford University Press. I presume it could be more suitable to your purpose. Take a look at the "THEORIES FOR THE ORIGIN OF FEATHERS" section or just ctrl+f (Reichholf, 1996)to read about him. This could be represent the first link of the evolutionary chain that thanks to the adaptation and exaptation processes lead to modern feather. --93.41.160.217 (talk) 18:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Thanks, that is certainly a review that could be used. Shyamal (talk) 02:37, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Feathers in amber

The discovery and analysis of feathers found in amber will eventually need to have its own section, perhaps even its own article, but for now, with only preliminary research having been conducted, i added a sentence on the subject.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 01:39, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Basal shaft

What is the basal shaft of a bird’s feather? It could be explained in the article. Pablo.ea.92 (talk) 01:06, 10 December 2011 (UTC)

Avian or avialan?

I see that in the lead there is a reference to "birds and some non-avian theropod dinosaurs". Elsewhere in WP, these are referred to as "non-avialan". What's the difference? Or which is right? AdeMiami (talk) 18:19, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

The problem is that there are competing definitions of Aves. In one, avian means basically the same thing as avialan (birds in the broad sense, including Archaeopteryx etc.). In the other, avian means only modern birds. I would recommend using avialan in place of avian when talking about Mesozoic birds to avoid confusion. MMartyniuk (talk) 22:01, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

Coloration

I've been editing this article to improve the writing while making a great effort not to change meaning. I have come across a paragraph that is not well written. There is one sentence that I think is wordy and unclear, and I don't know how to fix it. It is in the last paragraph in the section headed "Coloration":

"One study notes that melanin based feathers were observed to degrade more quickly under bacterial action, even compared to unpigmented feathers from the same species, than those unpigmented or with carotenoid pigments." (italics mine)

Besides being unclear, it mentions results that seem to undermine the statement in the previous sentence. If that is true, then some kind of transitional word or phrase, or adverb, needs to be added at the beginning of this sentence to show a contrast. The next sentence after this seems to support the statement in the previous sentence. Thus, three sentences are organized as follows:

1) statement: "The presence of melanin in feathers increases their resistance to abrasion."

2) sentence supporting the opposite: "One study notes that melanin based feathers were observed to degrade more quickly under bacterial action, even compared to unpigmented feathers from the same species, than those unpigmented or with carotenoid pigments.

3) sentence supporting the statement: "However, another study the same year compared the action of bacteria on pigmentations of two song sparrow species and observed that the darker pigmented feathers were more resistant; the authors cited other research also published in 2004 that stated increased melanin provided greater resistance.

with no transitional words or phrases. Perhaps someone who knows the subject can work on this and improve the organization and clarity of the paragraph.CorinneSD (talk) 23:15, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

What's a quill knob?

The term "quill knob" redirects here, but the article does not mention them. What is a quill knob, and how does it relate to feathers?209.183.253.98 (talk) 15:28, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

From the flight feather article: "Secondaries are connected to the ulna. In some species, the ligaments that bind these remiges to the bone connect to small, rounded projections, known as quill knobs, on the ulna; in other species, no such knobs exist." Hope that helps! I'll change the redirect to point to that article instead of this one. MeegsC (talk) 15:59, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

I think this is better in the Pennaceous feather article since many quill knobs are present in non-flying species. I added a brief section there and changed the re-direct. Dinoguy2 (talk) 16:01, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good. Thanks Dinoguy. MeegsC (talk) 16:03, 20 February 2014 (UTC)

Stage-X feathers

In the Feather#Feathered_dinosaurs section, the article uses the terms stage-1 and stage-3 feathers without explaining what these mean. Please expand. Fig (talk) 12:13, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

@Fig:, I've added a "see below" reference to the article. Does that work? I'm not sure if it makes sense to put the evolutionary stages section before the bit about the feathered dinosaurs, but I certainly see the confusion with using stage numbers without having explained them first! Suggestions welcomed… MeegsC (talk) 13:36, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Ah, I see. Yes that works, thanks :-) Fig (talk) 13:59, 14 August 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 June 2016

Trustworthybastile (talk) 04:52, 21 June 2016 (UTC) I have a request! So, below is what is posted on the page:

Parts of a feather:

1. Vane
2. Rachis
3. Barb
4. Afterfeather
5. Hollow shaft, calamus

I think that instead of "Barb" (#3) It should be written "Barbule", since that is the full word.

Not done: Hi Trustworthybastile, unfortunately I've declined this request. A quick look at the article shows that barb and barbules are different things; barbules branch from the barb. st170e^talk 15:15, 21 June 2016 (UTC)

Oh, gotcha! Thanks! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Trustworthybastile (talk • contribs) 04:07, 22 June 2016 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 22 September 2023

Add this text after reference 83 in the section "Molecular evolution":

However, a study of fossil feathers from the dinosaur Sinosauropteryx and other fossils revealed traces of beta-sheet proteins, using infrared spectroscopy and sulfur-X-ray spectroscopy. The presence of abundant alpha-proteins in some fossil feathers was shown to be an artefact of the fossilization process, as beta-protein structures are readily altered to alpha-helices during thermal degradation.

With the citation: 10.1038/s41559-023-02177-8 Anaimsirlaithreach (talk) 00:12, 22 September 2023 (UTC)

I have made this edit as requested --MtPenguinMonster (talk) 12:24, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

 Note: marked as done NotAGenious (talk) 13:40, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 April 2024

Add "Researchers have identified 26 feather functions." under the 'Function' header. Ty.ty.tiger (talk) 03:39, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

 Not done: Thank you for your time researching this topic and making this edit request. Unfortunately, your source refers to a single researcher and research paper. We would want a source of high reliability to state that this is the majority opinion of most researchers. —Sirdog (talk) 05:27, 5 April 2024 (UTC)