What are the parts of the feather of a bird?

Feather Anatomy The parts of a feather you can see with the unaided eye are the rachis, vane, afterfeather, barbs, downy barbs and the hollow shaft. There are also tiny parts called barbules and hooklets that help hold the barbs together and give the feather its shape.

What is bird feathering?

Protection. The big, stiff feathers on a bird’s wings and tail are called flight feathers. These give it the push it needs for flying. Flightless birds have no proper flight feathers with their feathers being limp and floppy. Feathers are arranged in lines and patterns, each with a different name.

What are the strands of a feather called?

Barb: an individual strand of feather material (keratin), extending laterally from the rachis. Barbule: a lateral branch of a feather barb. Calamus: the hollow inner portion of the feather shaft that lacks barbs and attaches to the skin. Sometimes called the quill.

What are the bristles on a feather called?

It’s here that the branching patterns form by smaller branches fusing at the base to make thicker ones—barbulesbarbulebarb-YOOLone of the secondary branches off a feather barb fuse into barbsbarbone of the main branches off the central shaft of a feather and barbs fuse into a rachisrachisRAY-kissthe stiff central shaft …

What is the spine of a feather called?

Feathers are made of a tough and flexible material called keratin. The spine down the middle, called the shaft, is hollow. The vanes are on the two halves of the feather. They are made of thousands of branches called barbs.

What is the shape of a feather?

But the feathers of flying birds, with a round-to-square sectional shape, retain their rigidity intact in spite of bending. By contrast, non-flight feathers, such as flightless ostrich wing feathers and peacock tail feathers, are not subjected to the same constraints and their shafts do not change from round to square.