Beak

Beak types:

• predatory (sharp, bent down)

needed for tearing meat.

• water (flat, with horny plates and denticles)

waterfowl have such a beak, teeth keep slippery food.

• granivorous (short, thick and strong, allowing significant compressive forces)

it is possessed by all birds that feed on seeds and grains.

• insectivorous (sharp, thin, of various shapes and lengths)

convenient for catching insects

The filter is an important purchase for birds such as flamingos and most anseriformes. On the edges of the beak there are frequent transverse horny plates, in which small objects get stuck when filtering water.

On the inner edges of the beaks of some fossil birds (hesperornis-like) there were teeth. In addition to birds, cloacal mammals, turtles, two-gill cephalopods, and pterosaurs also have beak-like formations. Archeopteryx, considered the first known bird, lacked a beak.

Literature

• Biological encyclopedic dictionary / Ch. ed. M. S. Gilyarov; Editorial board .: A. A. Baev, G. G. Vinberg, G. A. Zavarzin and others - 2nd ed., Revised. - M .: Soviet encyclopedia, 1989 .-- 864 p. - ISBN 5-85270-002-9 (See annotation.)
• Alekseev V.A. 300 questions and answers about animals. - Yaroslavl: Academy of Development, 1997.
• Demyankov E. N. Biology in questions and answers: Book. for the teacher. - M .: Education, JSC "Textbook. lit. ", 1996

Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

See what "Beak" is in other dictionaries:

beak- the beak, and ... Russian spelling dictionary

beak- beak / ... Morphemic-spelling dictionary

- (rostrum), the organ of birds, formed by elongated toothless jaws, covered with a horny sheath of the ramfotek. The functions of K. are very diverse, which is reflected in the variety of its forms. Serves for grasping prey, dismembering it, for touching, ... ... Biological encyclopedic dictionary

BEAK, beak, husband. Horny bivalve end of the mouth in birds, turtles and monotremes, serving for pecking and striking. Eagle's beak. Sharp beak. Ushakov's explanatory dictionary. D.N. Ushakov. 1935 1940 ... Ushakov's Explanatory Dictionary

A; m. The horny elongated bivalve end of the mouth in birds, as well as in some other animals (for example, turtles). A woodpecker hollows the bark of a tree with its beak. K. eagle. ◁ Beak, a; m. Reduced. caress. The chicks opened their beaks. * * * the beak is an organ in birds, ... ... encyclopedic Dictionary

Cm … Synonym dictionary

BEAK, ah, husband. In birds: a horny formation of two elongated, closing jaws. Eagle k. Peck, gouge with a beak. | decrease. beak, ah, husband. Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary. S.I. Ozhegov, N.Yu. Shvedova. 1949 1992 ... Ozhegov's Explanatory Dictionary

BEE, bite, see bite. Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary. IN AND. Dahl. 1863 1866 ... Dahl's Explanatory Dictionary

Birds are one of the most amazing representatives of the animal world. Despite the general plan of the structure, they are all very diverse. And the bird's beak is no exception. In our article, we will consider the features of its structure in representatives of different systematic groups of birds.

General characteristics of birds

The main feature of these animals is the ability to fly. For this, birds have a number of adaptive features:

• the body is streamlined;
• the forelimbs are modified into wings;
• the presence of a feather cover;
• hollow bones, as well as the presence of a keel - a protrusion of the sternum;
• warm-bloodedness.

The structure of the bird's beak

The "visiting card" of each species is its beak. The photo of bird beaks in our article proves this once again. In an eagle it is bent downward, in a goose it is flat and provided with special teeth, and in a swallow it is thin and sharp. The bird's beak is the jaw. Their bone tissue is covered with a horny substance, which chemically resembles human hair and nails. At the base of the upper part of the beak there are nostrils through which air enters the body.

If we compare the functional features of the jaws of humans and birds, then we can say that in the latter they are distinguished by a great variety and specialization. It is not only a device for obtaining and swallowing food. With the help of the beak, birds extract building material for nests, build their own dwellings, and lean while climbing. Some aquatic birds use it as a filter.

Which bird has which beak

Popular wisdom says: "Every bird is fed with its beak." And this is no coincidence. The shape, length and size of the beak are really determined by the way food is obtained and its nature.

For example, the ibis is a bird with a long beak. Thanks to this structure, it can extract any living creature from shallow water or from the soil. Everyone knows the pelican's beak. At the bottom, it has a leathery bag that the bird uses to catch fish. And woodpeckers use their beak as a chisel with which they make holes in the bark of trees. So the bird gets insects and their larvae.

According to the way of feeding and the characteristics of life, birds can be combined into several groups. Let's take a closer look at each of them and their corresponding beak types.

"Predatory" beak

The birds of this group are of considerable size and are capable of "soaring" flight. This feature allows them to track prey in open areas. Then the predators fly down like a stone and plunge sharp claws into their prey. Their beak is curved downward and very sharp. Therefore, vultures, eagles, hawks and falcons easily tear the meat of prey to pieces.

Waterfowl

This group includes geese, swans, ducks. Their beak has a flat shape and is equipped with denticles and plates of horny substance. With their help, birds grind and grind food.

But loons, which are also representatives of waterfowl, have a pointed beak. These birds feed on small fish that they catch when diving.

The snipe is a bird with a long beak. She lives in swamps, getting small vertebrates from the mud. The heron also has such a beak, which allows it to hold the fish. It is considered a semi-aquatic bird because it does not have a coccygeal gland. This feature prevents her from swimming and diving.

Granivorous birds

Bullfinches and goldfinches prefer seeds, buds and berries as their favorite treats. Therefore, their beak is short, but thick at the same time. This feature allows granivorous birds not to make significant efforts to get food.

Seeds are absorbed in different ways. For example, chicken representatives swallow them without crushing them. They have a well-developed gizzard and goiter, in which food is chemically processed for several hours.

Finches use their beak not only to collect seeds. These birds first peel them of the inedible peel, and then crush the core, crushing the food. This process is possible thanks to a massive beak with a sharp tip and developed muscles.

Birds that swallow the seeds completely will help spread the seeds. When passing through the intestines, they practically do not lose the ability to germinate, and often even increase this quality.

Meet the insectivores

The beak of birds that prefer insects can be of various shapes and lengths. However, it is always thin and sharp. Representatives of this group of birds are swallows, starlings, swifts, tits, thrush, flycatchers, orioles, and cuckoos.

They consume a particularly large amount of food during the feeding of the offspring. At the same time, malicious pests of agriculture are destroyed: leaf beetles, moths, beetles, aphids. They collect their food in the soil, grass, bushes.

Ecologists believe that it is the activity of birds that prevents harmful insects from reproducing in catastrophic forms. An interesting fact is that under favorable conditions insectivores can change their food habits. This is very important in the development of certain types of pests. Therefore, there is a pattern: if a large number of birds appeared within the range, it means that there is an intensive reproduction of insects, and vice versa.

It should be noted that birds with different types of beaks have additional features that allow them to get food. In carnivores, these are wide wings, providing a "soaring" flight, and sharp claws. And granivores have well-developed muscles.

Thus, the bird's beak corresponds to the nature of the food and the way of its extraction. According to these features, birds are combined into several groups:

• Predatory - they have a powerful beak bent downwards. This allows them to attack, hold, and tear prey.
• Waterfowl - includes birds with two types of beaks. The first one is flat and equipped with an apparatus for grinding food. The second is sharp and long, allowing you to search for vertebrates in the water.
• Granivores - have a short but very powerful beak. They develop great strength when crushing seeds and fruits.
• Insectivores - characterized by a sharp and thin beak. This allows you to get food from the most inaccessible places.

Among more than 10,000 bird species, there are birds with bizarre beaks. Shape and color indicate a personality and unique function that is rarely found in other species. Some types of beaks are so strange that only one species of bird on the planet can boast of them. It is about such bird beaks that we will tell you.

10. Kitoglav (Shoebill)

This huge heron-like bird roams large swamps in East Africa. Their huge beaks resemble a Dutch shoe, while the curved tip only enhances the resemblance. Whale head storks can ingest catfish, frogs, and even lungfish, along with occasional birds and mammals. This species can reach almost one and a half meters in height, with a weight of 5.5 kilograms. Gray birds with pale eyes stand still for a long period of time and suddenly plunge their beak into the water. Despite their large size, whale heads can walk on floating vegetation as they stalk their prey.

9. Wrybill


This coastal bird, which belongs to the family Charadriidae and lives near rivers, with rims on whitish-gray plumage, looks like one of the most common birds in the world until you look closely at its beak. The bent to the side, wavy "curved beak" gives the bird an advantage when searching for food, since the bow-nosed plover with the help of its beak sifts stones in its habitat on the banks of rivers. The curved beak helps the bird to reach and conveniently extract prey, consisting of crustaceans and insects from under the stones. The beak is always curved to the right.

8. American Curlew (Long-billed Curlew)


Curlews have long been known in Europe for popular fiction and cultural references, but the American Curlew of North America is the longest-beaked curlew in the Charadriidae family. Like many snipe, American curlews actually live far inland, far from oceans and even freshwater bodies. They nest in meadows. This species uses its huge beak as a scythe, catching not aquatic animals, but grasshoppers, crickets and other small field invertebrates. American curlews migrate great distances. During migration season, they can be seen in coastal habitats. The pale beige plumage and long, curved beak, which can be up to twenty centimeters in length, make this bird like a blade when it hunts for prey.

7. Surf Scoter


Ducks are known to quack, but in fact, sea-dwelling ducks make a huge variety of sounds. In addition, the typical yellow beak seen on mallards or farm ducks is not universal for all ducks. Ducks can be divided into several categories: river ducks and sea ducks. Ocean waterfowl have some of the strangest beaks among birds. The variegated scooper, which has an almost entirely black plumage and has adapted to feeding on mollusks, boasts a huge shellfish beak, which allows it to easily pick up large prey from the ocean floor. Black, orange and beige patterns on the male's beak make him especially bright, while the large nasal openings look like a transparent tunnel passes through his beak. Spotted scoopers live along North American coastal lines and travel north during nesting season. When they gather in large schools, a strange cry can be heard on the water, more like a whistle.

6. Sword Billed Hummingbird


The sword-billed hummingbird from South America is found in a variety of habitats where deep fuchsia flowers are common. In order to climb into these flowers and collect nectar, the sword-billed hummingbird has a beak that makes it perfectly adapted to this lifestyle and gives it an extremely unique appearance. The beak of this spectacular, bright green bird reaches a whopping 10 centimeters and is the only beak in the world that is longer than the bird that possesses it. In this species, the tongue also stretches much further than in other species. When flying, it is clear that it is very difficult for a bird to fly with such a weight in front of the body; nevertheless, this adaptation helped it find its ecological niche.

5. Great Merganser (Common Merganser)


The Great Merganser resembles the average duck, but in fact it is a living example of a prehistoric concept or even a concept from science fiction - a ferocious hunting bird with razor-sharp teeth. This duck's beak is dotted with over 100 treacherous "teeth" that extend from the edges of each jaw. This species is the largest of the entire genus of merganser and lives on estuaries, lakes, rivers and large ponds throughout the Northern Hemisphere. The teeth of this fish-eating bird allow it to easily grab fish, tear it apart and eat it. This toothy killer also feeds from time to time on small mammals, as well as frogs or reptiles that get on the menu if they get too close to this bird. In flight, large mergansers are one of the fastest birds and can reach speeds in excess of 80 kilometers per hour. The great merganser is also one of the largest species of ducks.

4. Black Skimmer


The three types of water cutters are waterfowl, endemic to the rivers and oceans of Asia, South America, North America and Africa. A unique feature of these striking black and white birds with large heads is that they have disproportionate mandibles, as the lower jaw protrudes much further than the upper jaw. Black water cutters fly along the water at high speeds, and their lower part of the beak cuts a channel in the water. Every time a fish or shrimp meets in the path of the channel, the beak slams shut and the bird swallows the prey. However, such an extreme lifestyle is not without certain risks, so from time to time, birds have collisions with underwater objects. The beaks of the water cutters are very colorful, with red and black strokes. They also use their pointed beaks to kill gulls that invade their nesting sites.

3. Roseate Spoonbill


The pink spoonbills found in the Florida Everglades are pink flamingos and even resemble these birds from afar. They look very bright and unusual. However, this pink plumage does not hide the grotesque and dinosaur-like appearance of their muzzles, as well as the non-plumage body parts. Spoonbill has an enormous, flat beak that resembles a one yard ruler. At the end of the beak, its shape becomes more rounded. The huge spatula carried by this bird gives it easy access to a variety of aquatic animals and nutritious food sources in the warm, shallow swampy waters where it feeds. Spoonbills can often be seen feeding along with herons, storks and cranes.

2. Crossbill


Various types of crossbills belonging to the finch family look like canaries and live in the coniferous forests of the Northern Hemisphere. While walking in nature in Canada and Scotland, you are most likely to see representatives of one or more species of crossbill. These colorful red or yellow finches have beaks that curve in opposite directions, giving them a bizarre and deformed appearance. Different types of crossbills have slightly different beak shapes that allow them to focus on their specific adaptations to available food sources. The activity of the crossbills can be seen at ground level by the number of discarded cones that are plucked by these parrot-like songbirds with curved beaks.

1. American Woodcock


Bird beaks should be rigid probes or appendages for picking up and pecking. However, some coastal birds have more bizarre jaw adaptations. Woodcocks from the snipe family have disproportionately long beaks. They live in moist forests and bushes, where there is mud and moist soil from which they extract invertebrates. The woodcock's beak is equipped with nerve endings that allow it to be used as an effective sensory organ. Most incredible, however, is the woodcock's ability to flex its beak for added control and maneuverability as it digs through the forest floor and grabs prey. Among its victims are earthworms, beetle larvae and other small invertebrates. The beak of this bird feels soft and flesh-like to the touch compared to that of many closely related species.

How do birds use their beak? Like our instruments, a bird's beak has different functions, but unlike humans, a bird always carries it with it. uses its short, sharp beak as a drill, building a nest for chicks, and above all foraging. Shape indicates function, and a bird's diet can be determined by its beak. The beak is thin and long so that you can get to the nectar in the flower.

The macaw parrot needs to supplement its fruit diet with kaolin, it gets it from the seeds, which it breaks with its powerful beak. An unusual shape of the beak indicates close dependence on conifers. The ends of the upper and lower parts of the beak cross, which helps the bird to bend the scales of the cones with them and extract seeds from them.

No other bird in the world has such an extraordinary beak as a kiwi. In this bird, it is long, curved, about 20 cm. There are two holes at the very tip of the kiwi's beak. These are the nostrils. Olfactory nerves extend to them from the brain. With this beak, the kiwi literally sniffs out its prey: and their larvae, snails and earthworms.

In the spring, as soon as the water leaves the flooded banks, black streaks of silt remain. It is then that chains of crosses and holes are visible on the dirt. This means that the forest sandpiper was eating here. It runs through the wet silt back and forth, as if dancing, and constantly plunges its beak into the mud. It has special tactile endings on the delicate tip of its beak, which it wields like fingers. It will launch its golden-rusty beak into the muddy slurry, find a worm there, and drag it out. And where the sandpiper pokes with its beak, such holes remain. Tweezers for probing silt, they also have harpoons for catching fish and eels, ibises and herons. The beaks of waterfowl are also varied. The pelican's beak is equipped with an elastic bag, stretching, it can hold up to 14 liters of water along with prey.

The flamingo uses its unusual beak as a sieve, sifting out microscopic crustaceans from the silt, containing a pigment that gives the feathers a pink tint. The water cutter, flying over the surface of the water with the lower part of the beak, literally removes the cream from the water.

But the most unusual and deceiving beak belongs to the toucan. Looks impressive, but in fact it is hollow and sharp, and it takes a long, thin tongue to push food down the throat.