Flight feathers are stiff and, because birds can control their positions, act almost like individual wings. The individual feather "branches" (or, more correctly, barbs) have their own barbules ...

Sullivan found that barbules -- the smaller, hook-like structures that connect feather barbs -- are spaced within 8 to 16 micrometers of one another in all birds, from the hummingbird to the condor.

Video of water spreading through the specialized sandgrouse feathers, under magnification, shows the uncoiling and spreading of the feather’s barbules as they become wet.

But in dry sandgrouse feathers, the inner zone of the feather has barbules that are helically coiled at their base that then straighten out. In the outer zone, the barbules are straight and much ...

Individual feathers held the water through a forest of barbules near the shaft, working together with the curled barbules near the tip acting almost like caps. "That's what excited us, to see that ...

The barbules in Namaqua sandgrouse feathers, seen here, uncoil when wet and form a dense web that secures the water. Johns Hopkins University. Since then, ...

In the outer zone of the feather, the barbules lack the helical coil and are simply straight. Both parts lack the grooves and hooks that hold the vane of contour feathers together in most other birds.

Proto-feathers are simple, cylindrical filaments. They differ from modern feathers by the absence of barbs and barbules, and by the lack of a follicle—an invagination at their base.

Rendered feathers of four common bird species, exhibiting iridescent structural color arising from a variety of nanoscale ...

The Type I feathers are more similar to primitive feathers found in non-avian theropods – or three-toed dinosaurs – than modern birds, with slightly curved barbules and no hook-groove mechanism.