Bird Feathers Sing | National Geographic

a new study from Cornell University
claims to have identified the first bird
species that creates singing sounds with
the feathers of their wings deep in an
ambient cloud forest this male club
winged manikin is courting females
Kimberley Bostwick at Cornell set out to
prove that the bird was using its wing
feathers to create its violin like sound
Bostick reports the manikin vibrates its
wings at more than 100 cycles per second
twice the speed of humming birds using
lasers to monitor feather vibrations
bostwick’s team reports in Proceedings
of the Royal Society that the manikins
club shaped feathers vibrate at 1,500
Hertz this is the same frequency of the
sound made by the manikin Bostwick
theorizes that there are other birds
that use their wings in this manner she
says more studies should be done in her
report
Bostwick also points out that the new
evidence places the club wing mannequin
with arthropods who also use their wings
to produce singing sounds such as the
castanet moth and many crickets