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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 ]
Harbor seals must spend a great deal of time on shore when molting, which occurs shortly after breeding. This onshore time is important to the life cycle, and can be disturbed when substantial human presence occurs. [36] The timing of onset of molt depends on the age and sex of the animal, with yearlings molting first and adult males last. [37]
Mountain goats molt in spring by rubbing against rocks and trees, with the adult billies shedding their extra wool first and the pregnant nannies shedding last. Their coats help them to withstand winter temperatures as low as −46 °C (−51 °F) and winds of up to 160 kilometres per hour (99 mph).
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.
Animals caught in terrestrial mudflows are subject to involuntary locomotion; this may be beneficial to the distribution of species with limited locomotive range under their own power. There is less opportunity for passive locomotion on land than by sea or air, though parasitism (hitchhiking) is available toward this end, as in all other habitats.
Birds lacking a brood patch incubate the eggs with their feet – grasping one or even two of them (gannets, boobies) or keeping them on the top surfaces of their feet (penguins under a pouch of belly skin, murres). [1] Courtship (sage grouse), including aerial courtship (bald eagles) [3] Building nests (with help from the bill) [1]