Comparison of bird beaks (IMAGE)
Caption
The beaks of albatrosses and penguins, compared to other, “normal” beaks (examples shown of a petrel and a gull) and a bird with a tactile bill-tip organ (a tinamou, close relative of ostriches and emus and which has an ancestral bill-tip organ). The photographs show the underside of the beak bones, and the red struictures on the right show the neurovascular tissue (nerves and blood vessels) within the bone. Note the high numbers of neurovascular pits or “holes” on the bone of the beak and high density of neurovascular canals in albatrosses and penguins, similar to that of the birds with known bill-tip organs.
Credit
Carla du Toit
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Credit Carla du Toit
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Original content