Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird. The primary function of the flight feathers is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby enabling flight. The flight feathers of some birds have evolved to perform additional functions, generally associated with territorial displays, courtship rituals or feeding methods.
About Flight feather in brief
Flight feathers are the long, stiff, asymmetrically shaped, but symmetrically paired pennaceous feathers on the wings or tail of a bird. The primary function of the flight feathers is to aid in the generation of both thrust and lift, thereby enabling flight. The flight feathers of some birds have evolved to perform additional functions, generally associated with territorial displays, courtship rituals or feeding methods. Even flightless birds still retain flight feathers, though sometimes in radically modified forms. The moult of their flight feathers can cause serious problems for birds, as it can impair their ability to fly. Different species have evolved different strategies for coping with this, ranging from dropping all theirFlight feathers at once to extending the moult over a period of several years. Remiges are located on the posterior side of the wing. Primaries are connected to the manus ; these are the longest and narrowest of the remiges, and they can be individually rotated. Secondary feathers remain close together in flight and help to provide lift by creating the airfoil shape of the bird’s wing. They vary in number from 6 in hummingbirds to as many as 40 in some species of albatross. In general, larger and longer-winged species have a larger number of secondaries. Tertials arise in the brachial region and are not considered flight feathers as they are not supported by attachment to the corresponding bone, in this case the humerus.
These elongated tertials act as a protective cover for all all of the folded or folded feathers, and do not qualify as flight feathers. However, many authorities use the term ‘tertials’ to refer to the shorter, more symmetrical secondaries of passerines in more than 40 non-passerine families, such as gulls, sandpipers, parrots, and gulls. Lobes, pelicans, eagles, gulls and eagles are among the families missing this feather. In these birds, the fifth of secondary covertons does not cover any set of feathers, possibly due to a twisting of the feather papae during embryonic development. In some species, the ligaments that bind these remige to the bone connect to small, rounded projections, known as quill knobs, on the ulna; in other species, no such knobs exist. While most modern passerines have ten primaries, some have only nine. Those with nine are missing the most distal primary, which is typically very small and sometimes rudimentary in passerines. The outermost primaries are sometimes known as pinions. The number in non-Passerines generally varies between 9 and 11, but grebes, storks and flamingos have 12, and ostriches have 16. In hummingbirds, the number in storks, flamingos and flamingo have 12. They vary from 9 to 11 in grebes and storks to 16 in ostriche and grebes. The barbules are specialized with large lobular barbicels that help grip and prevent slippage of overlying feathers.
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This page is based on the article Flight feather published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 05, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
