The woodpecker is a unique bird species that has gone through some mysteriously acquired adaptations since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Fossils tell us, without any explanations of course (because ...

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to ...

Scientists are rethinking the evolution of vocal learning in birds. New Zealand's smallest bird, the rifleman or titipounamu, may have a rudimentary version of the talent possessed by parrots, ...

The birds of today descended from the dinosaurs of yore. Researchers have known relatively little, however, about how the bird's brain took shape over tens of millions of years. "Birds are one of the ...

(Reuters) - Scientists have unearthed in southeastern China the fossil of a quail-sized bird that lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Period and possessed surprisingly modern traits, ...

Sometimes, the best survival strategy is disguising yourself like something no one wants to eat, much less mess with and dig around in: bird poop. That is the approach taken by newly discovered spider ...

ANN ARBOR—Shortly after an asteroid slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, life for non-avian dinosaurs ended, but the evolutionary story for the early ancestors of birds began. The fossil record ...

Birds-of-paradise have captivated the planet with their elaborate plumage and idiosyncratic mating dances. Some species appear to shape-shift as they elongate plumes of feathers, fan their wings, or ...