Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A dragonfly in its radical final moult, metamorphosing from an aquatic nymph to a winged adult.. In biology, moulting (British English), or molting (American English), also known as sloughing, shedding, or in many invertebrates, ecdysis, is a process by which an animal casts off parts of its body to serve some beneficial purpose, either at specific times of the year, or at specific points in ...
When preening, a bird (such as this red lory) draws individual feathers through its beak, realigning and re-interlocking the barbules.. Preening is a maintenance behaviour found in birds that involves the use of the beak to position feathers, interlock feather barbules that have become separated, clean plumage, and keep ectoparasites in check.
Their eggs and resistant life-cycle stages (cysts and tuns) are small and durable enough to enable long-distance transport, whether on the feet of other animals or by the wind. [ 3 ] Individual species have more specialised distributions, many being both regional and limited to a single type of habitat, such as mountains. [ 6 ]
The tips of their feet have sharp dewclaws that keep them from slipping. They have powerful shoulder and neck muscles that help propel them up steep slopes. [ 7 ] Based on a field recording in the Rocky Mountains of Canada of a mountain goat climbing a 45-degree slope, researchers were able to measure the goat's whole body movement as it climbed.
Elephant seals are shielded from extreme cold more by their blubber than by fur. Their hair and outer layers of skin molt in large patches. The skin has to be regrown by blood vessels reaching through the blubber. When molting occurs, the seal is susceptible to the cold, and must rest on land, in a safe place called a "haul out". Northern males ...
A boa constrictor in the U.K. gave birth to 14 babies — without a mate. The process is called parthenogenesis, from the Greek words for “virgin” and “birth.”
A new analysis of three-toed fossil footprints that date back more than 210 million years reveals that they were created by bipedal reptiles with feet like a bird’s.
Younger animals are marked by net-like, chocolate brown markings and flecks on the shoulders, sides and flanks, shading into the predominantly dark hind and fore flippers and head, often due to scarring from leopard seals. After molting, their fur is a darker brown fading to blonde on their bellies.