Unzipping bird feathers
Open accessAbstract
The bird feather vane can be separated into two parts by pulling the barbs apart. The original state can be re-established easily by lightly stroking through the feather. Hooklets responsible for holding vane barbs together are not damaged by multiple zipping and unzipping cycles. Because numerous microhooks keep the integrity of the feather, their properties are of great interest for understanding mechanics of the entire feather structure. This study was undertaken to estimate the separation force of single hooklets and their arrays using force measurement of an unzipping feather vane. The hooklets usually separate in some number synchronously (20 on average) with the highest observed separation force of 1.74 mN (average force 0.27 mN), whereas the single hooklet separation force was 14 μN. A simple numerical model was suggested for a better understanding of zipping and unzipping behaviour in feathers. The model demonstrates features similar to those observed in experiments.
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SEM imaging revealed barbule ultrastructures that lock together the eyespot barbs, similar to those found on flight primaries and contour feathers in other bird species.
“SEM imaging also revealed barbule ultrastructures that lock together the eyespot barbs (Fig 8F and 8G), similar to those found on flight primaries and contour feathers in other bird species [44].”
From Biomechanics of the Peacock’s Display: How Feather Structure and Resonance Influence Multimodal Signaling (2016) · cites this paper as [44]
The Introduction describes SEM-visible hooklets on barbules of typical contour feathers in most birds and explains how they anchor neighbouring barbs. This supports the comparison to interlocking structures in other birds, but our copy does not specifically identify flight primaries. The eyespot observation is the citing authors’ own finding, not a finding attributed to this source. (LLM, conf=0.86)
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- Authors
- Kovalev, A., Filippov, A. E., & Gorb, S. N.
- Affiliations
- Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel (DE)
- National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (UA)
- Corresponding author
- Kovalev, Alexander
- Venue
- Journal of The Royal Society Interface
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2014-03-06
- Volume
- 11
- Issue
- 92
- Pages
- 20130988
- ISSN
- 1742-5662 (ISSN-L)
- 1742-5689
- PMC
- PMC3899865
- OpenAlex
- W2002588158
- Cited by
- 48
- References
- 18
- Citations by year
- 2026: 2 · 2025: 5 · 2024: 3 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 12 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 4 · 2019: 4 · 2018: 1 · 2017: 4 · 2016: 5 · 2015: 1 · 2014: 1
- FWCI
- 2.69
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Journal of The Royal Society Interface (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanics of Materials › Adhesion, Friction, and Surface Interactions
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanical Engineering › Advanced Materials and Mechanics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Aerospace Engineering › Biomimetic flight and propulsion mechanisms
- Keywords
- bird feathers, hooklets, unzipping, separation force, numerical model
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Biomechanical Phenomena, Feathers, Microscopy, Electron, Scanning, Models, Biological, Anseriformes
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