Nature's musician: Meet the only bird that produces music with its wings
Nature does not fall short when it comes to blessing the human eyes and ears with surprising marvels! One among these marvels resides deep in the cloud forests of South America. It is a small, vibrant creature called the club-winged manakin that has turned its sound-producing abilities into a concert.
While most birds sing with their vocal cords to attract mates, the Male club-winged manakin has taken a completely different approach. It doesn't sing, instead, it uses its wings to create a musical tone that is quite pure and precise, so much so that it competes as a musical instrument. This sound isn't just noise; it's rhythm, it's tone, and it's so consistent that it has been compared to a musical note.
Recent research has revealed a unique modification in its body that allows this bird to make such sounds.
What is special about this bird?
According to scientists at Cornell University, the male club-winged manakin doesn't sing in the traditional way. Instead, it creates sound by rubbing a pair of specialized wing feathers together, up to an astonishing 100 times per second. This unusually fast wing movement produces a high-pitched tone that is so stable, it matches the frequency of a musical note. It's like the bird is playing its own instrument, using its body as the bow and strings.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
Free P2,000 GCash eGift
UnionBank Credit Card
Apply Now
Undo
What makes this movement unique?
A surprising trait about the bird is that despite its tiny size, the bird's body could withstand such rapid motion without breaking down. Using X-ray imaging, scientists found that the bones in the manakin's wings are unusually solid and dense, unlike any other known songbird. As reported by Cornell's research team, the wing bones are more similar to those of mammals than birds. 'This is one of the only known examples of a bird evolving dense bone not for flight, but for sound,' the study noted.
These dense bones are necessary to support the intense vibration caused by the feather rubbing. Researchers also found out that the bird sacrificed its ability for powerful flight to perform its unique musical mating call. Instead of soaring long distances, the club-winged manakin stays close to the forest floor, using its rhythm to charm potential mates.
It's just like a trade-off that shows just how far evolution can go in the name of love and sound.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
You won't believe this overlooked cause can be behind heart failure; new study unveils shocking results
A new study has discovered that hearing impairment often results in an increased risk of heart failure in human beings. According to the study, psychological distress caused by hearing impairment plays a 'notable' role in developing problems with the heart. Experts in China analyzed data from the UK Biobank, studying 164,431 people who took hearing tests designed to determine hearing ability for the research. Out of all participants, about 160,062 didn't use hearing aids . Heart failure happens when the heart cannot pump blood effectively, leading to symptoms like fatigue, shortness of breath, and swelling in the legs and ankles. According to the Independent, test participants were split into three groups based on how they performed in a digit triplet test (DTT), which checks for hearing issues by using random digit combinations against the background noise. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Digital Marketing CXO Data Science healthcare Design Thinking Others Project Management Operations Management Public Policy Technology Healthcare MBA Leadership Product Management MCA Degree Data Analytics PGDM Finance Artificial Intelligence Management Data Science others Cybersecurity Skills you'll gain: Digital Marketing Strategies Customer Journey Mapping Paid Advertising Campaign Management Emerging Technologies in Digital Marketing Duration: 12 Weeks Indian School of Business Digital Marketing and Analytics Starts on May 14, 2024 Get Details Skills you'll gain: Digital Marketing Strategy Search Engine Optimization (SEO) & Content Marketing Social Media Marketing & Advertising Data Analytics & Measurement Duration: 24 Weeks Indian School of Business Professional Certificate Programme in Digital Marketing Starts on Jun 26, 2024 Get Details It is pertinent to mention that, none of the people included in the initial analysis had heart failure, but over more than 11 years of follow-up, about 4,449 developed the condition. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Play War Thunder now for free War Thunder Play Now Undo What did the research find Following the study, the researchers discovered that those who had a higher speech reception threshold (SRT), meaning they required louder speech to understand words, had an increased risk of heart failure. 'Compared with those with normal hearing, participants with insufficient hearing, poor hearing, or hearing aid use had higher heart failure risks,' researchers were quoted by The Independent as saying. Live Events Among people who didn't use hearing aids, high SRT levels were also linked to psychological distress, social isolation, and neuroticism. 'We have been the first to demonstrate that poor hearing ability is significantly associated with a higher risk of incident heart failure in the general population,' the researchers further stated. 'Psychological factors, especially psychological distress, play a significant mediating role in this association. If further confirmed, hearing impairment may be a potential risk factor or marker for incident heart failure in the general population, highlighting the importance of integrating hearing health assessments into broader cardiovascular risk evaluation frameworks. Moreover, strengthening psychological intervention in people with hearing impairment may be an important path and strategy to reduce the risk of heart failure,' they continued.
Time of India
2 hours ago
- Time of India
Unique space radar will track earth's every shake & shift
Built By Isro & Nasa, This Satellite Could Become Our Planet's Early Warning System For Floods, Crop Loss, Coastal Erosion Our planet is constantly changing. The ground shifts, often unnoticed. Glaciers inch forward, coastlines retreat and forests thin or thicken with the seasons. Some of these changes unfold slowly. Others strike without warning. On Wednesday, July 30, a satellite called Nisar (Nasa-Isro Synthetic Aperture Radar ), the first joint satellite mission for the two space agencies, will lift off to track these movements. It will scan the Earth's surface every 12 days, capturing changes as small as a few centimetres. Each pixel will represent an area roughly half the size of a tennis court. The data Nisar will gather will serve a variety of purposes — it will warn of flooding, coastline erosion, guide realtime disaster response, improve food security and even track ships. It will be one of the most advanced Earth-observation satellites ever to go up. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Indonesia: Unsold Sofas Prices May Surprise You (Prices May Surprise You) Sofas | Search Ads Search Now Undo Beaming to villages Nisar's launch also comes 50 years after India and US collaborated on a very different kind of project: the Satellite Instructional Television Experiment, or SITE. Launched a month after then PM Indira Gandhi declared the Emergency, SITE began broadcasting on Aug 1, 1975 to community TV sets in 2,400 villages across Karnataka, Rajasthan, Odisha, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. It was seen as a mutually beneficial deal for Nasa and Isro. At the time, 40% of India's population was in villages with fewer than 3,000 people, and a quarter were in hamlets with fewer than 200. Traditional infrastructure alone couldn't reach them, but space tech could. So, an agreement was made: The US would supply its ATS-6 telecommunications satellite for a test run; India would build the ground infrastructure. The experiment was a success. SITE reached around 2 lakh people, helped train 50,000 science teachers in primary schools and beamed advice to thousands of farmers, becoming 'the largest sociological experiment in the world'. Before SITE, India and US had worked together in space for close to a decade, but this was the first time their efforts touched lives. 50 years apart 'It took 50 years from one major joint project in communications and broadcasting to another project on Earth observation,' former Isro deputy director Arup Dasgupta, who led deployment of SITE's receivers, told TOI. He said Nisar's launch showed how much Isro had progressed. 'Fifty years ago, we used a Nasa satellite to beam educational programmes. Today, we are launching their payload along with our own Synthetic Aperture Radar on an Indian launcher.' Nisar has been described by Nasa-JPL project scientist Paul Rosen as 'a storyteller of Earth's changing surface'. The satellite will capture motion of land, ice, water and vegetation across seasons, which means data for seismologists, climatologists, agriculturists, conservationists and many others. And the information will be freely available to them. A dual-band instrument Equipped with dual radar systems — the L-band by Nasa and Sband by Isro — Nisar can see through clouds and observe Earth day or night. It will scan the Himalayas, beaches of California, the Amazon rainforest and the farms of Punjab — not just once, but repeatedly, creating a time series of surface changes that show what has shifted, where and how fast.'It lets us read Earth's surface like a series of moving frames,' Rosen said. 'Using SAR, we can measure ground displacement down to even millimetre precision.' The longer-wavelength L-band penetrates vegetation and interacts with features such as rocks and tree trunks. Shorter S-band captures surface details like leaves and topsoil. Combined, they allow scientists to view the same landscape through two different lenses, revealing structure and change. 'A dual-band SAR like this has never flown before. L-band opens up deeper imaging and new interferometric applications. You can track deformation, subsidence, and seismic shifts in much finer detail,' said professor PG Diwakar of the National Institute of Advanced Studies. One major focus will be the Himalayas. 'We've never had such a tool for studying Himalayan snow, glaciers and lake systems. Nisar will let us observe how glacial lakes evolve — critical for understanding GLOF (glacial lake outburst flood) risk,' Diwakar said. L-band's ability to see below the canopy also improves forest assessments. For farmers, it will help forecast yields and assess crop loss. In disaster-prone areas, Nisar's interferometric accuracy will boost early detection, measuring ground shifts over wide regions. It will even aid during oil spills. 'This will be the first mission between US and India to observe Earth in such a detailed way,' said Nicola Fox, associate administrator, Nasa science mission directorate. Roots in 1978 Nisar's roots go back to a breakthrough launch in 1978, when Nasa put in orbit Seasat — the world's first satellite with SAR. The mission lasted only 105 days, but the data this satellite produced reshaped Earth observation. Now, nearly 50 years after Seasat, Nisar is set to go up and stay there for at least three years, generating more data daily than any other previous remote-sensing satellite. For India, which will handle its launch, the satellite deepens its scientific engagement with the world. For Nasa, it extends an Earth observation legacy. Together, they have created something greater than the sum of their parts — a satellite that watches Earth not as a snapshot, but as a breathing, evolving whole.
Time of India
3 hours ago
- Time of India
Don't miss the Perseids! Here's when and where to watch this year's most dazzling meteor show
One of summer's most spectacular sky shows is about to peak. The Perseid Meteor Shower , known for its dazzling fireballs and bright streaks of light, has already begun and will peak soon. Even with moonlight interference, it promises a spectacular cosmic display that you should not miss. Although moonlight may dim the meteor shower, fireballs and bright trails will still be visible. Find a dark sky location and look for Perseus. Explore courses from Top Institutes in Please select course: Select a Course Category Others Finance others Cybersecurity Healthcare Degree Digital Marketing CXO Management Product Management Technology Artificial Intelligence Public Policy PGDM Project Management Data Science healthcare MBA MCA Data Science Operations Management Data Analytics Leadership Design Thinking Skills you'll gain: Duration: 7 Months S P Jain Institute of Management and Research CERT-SPJIMR Exec Cert Prog in AI for Biz India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 28 Weeks MICA CERT-MICA SBMPR Async India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 16 Weeks Indian School of Business CERT-ISB Transforming HR with Analytics & AI India Starts on undefined Get Details Skills you'll gain: Duration: 9 months IIM Lucknow SEPO - IIML CHRO India Starts on undefined Get Details People flock to the night sky to witness the yearly Perseid Meteor Shower when night falls during this period. Often containing a large number of meteors, this is regarded as one of the year's best meteor showers. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Clearance Sale: Exclusive handcrafted handbags - now 70% off Handmakers Report Read Now Undo Long light streaks can be seen behind some of these meteors. Others have different colors and seem very bright. These are referred to as "fireballs." ALSO READ: How much coffee is too much? Shocking new data reveals the real impact of your daily brew Live Events When and where should you watch it? From late July to late August, one of the most amazing summertime events takes place. On July 17th, the Perseids began to appear and will remain visible until August 23rd. You may occasionally spot a meteor during this month-long display. There is a chance of 25 per hour during the peak on August 12 and 13, as per a report by CBS News. The Perseid Meteor Shower's peak this year will coincide with a nearly full moon, which is problematic. Some of the meteors will be washed out by the bright night sky due to the full moon, which occurs on the morning of August 9. ALSO READ: Jennifer Lopez handles onstage wardrobe malfunction "like a pro", fans applaud her grace and humor Although that will present some challenges, you should still look for a dark location with a clear view of the night sky in order to get the best views. The best course of action is to search for the meteor shower's radiant, as quoted in a report by CBS News. What causes the Perseid Meteor Shower? The Perseid Meteor Shower appears to have its origin in a radiant, which is the constellation Perseus. Their peak activity typically occurs between 11 p.m. and dawn. Debris from the comet 109P/Swift-Tuttle is what causes the Perseid Meteor Shower. According to NASA, the orbit of this 16-mile-wide comet around the Sun takes 133 years. That comet's remnants are traveling at a speed of 37 miles per second. That comes to 133,200 miles per hour if you do the math. At that speed, even small debris particles cause a great deal of friction and heat when they crash into Earth's atmosphere. A streak of light appears in the night sky as a result of the debris burning up! FAQs When is the best time to see the Perseids in 2025? The peak viewing is during the nights of August 12 and 13, especially after 11 p.m. Do I need a telescope to see the meteors? Nope, just your eyes, a clear sky, and a dark spot away from city lights.
