Monthly Archives: October 2011

The Elegant Swan’s Adaptations

Elegant yet notoriously aggressive, a swan is not only one of the largest birds to fly, but it is also very unique. Being mostly aquatic, it makes sense that this bird would have webbed feet. However, this has been shown to not only be for better control and movement in the water, but also an […]

Winglets: The anti-vortex device

In class we covered how vortices are generated at the tips of wings. We learned that this is due to high pressure air from under the wing spilling over the wing tip and moving into the area of low pressure above the wing. This causes a large “tornado” of air to form off of the […]

Golden eagle droppings

We’ve all seen Eagle’s hunt, but the Golden eagle has a special hunting tactic. It uses this thing called gravity to create dinner out of some unlikely, and unlucky prey. The Golden Eagle has been known to take turtles and baby goats and drop them from heights in order to instantly kill them. By time […]

Evolution of Mammalian Flight

As previously stated, bats are the only mammals truly capable of flight. But why is this? Of all the species of mammals, why is it that only the Order Chiroptera can achieve flight? And how did such an extraordinary adaptation come to be? Well…the answer is…we really are not sure. But there is evidence that […]

Vortices and the Amazing Flying V

We have learned that vortices can have devastating effects when an airplane flies through the wash of another airplane. The wings cause powerful spirals of air moving clockwise off the left wing and counterclockwise coming off the right wing. This holds for birds flying as well. The same vortex patterns emerge, albeit slightly different since […]