A Fork-tailed Flycatcher. Credit: Valentina Gómez-Bahamón, Field Museum Bird feathers have many different functions. Softer down keeps a bird warm and stiffer wing feathers are used for flight.

One of the remarkable abilities that birds possess is their ability to regenerate the feathers that they shed. Unlike human hair and nails, feathers consist of keratin and do not heal once damaged.

Researchers examined dozens of bird species in museum collections looking for differences in the feathers and bodies between birds that can fly and birds that can't. They found that when birds evolve ...

More than 99% of birds can fly. But that still leaves many species that evolved to be flightless, including penguins, ostriches, and kiwi birds. In a new study in the journal Evolution, researchers ...

Every bird you’ve ever seen— every robin, every pigeon, every penguin at the zoo— is a living dinosaur. Birds are the only group of dinosaurs that survived the asteroid-induced mass extinction 66 ...