vulture-adventures

Many of our birds were captive in the old university aviary, with researchers watching them every day. Try as they might to stay completely objective, occasionally researchers would grow attached to one of the little birds, sometimes even giving them names. The names could be just like human names of the day, like Peter or Jane, or have tales attached to them like Ulysses, or they could just be cute and a little funny.

There’s more than one way to skin a cat, and the same is true for birds. Most of our skins are “study skins”, which are stuffed with cotton and keep some of the bird’s original shape. The ones seen here, on the other hand, are flat skins. Flat skins are not stuffed, and they are positioned with one leg and one wing spread, allowing researchers to better see the wing shape and colors and leg color, which can’t been seen as well in study skins. The skins seen above are Jameson’s firefinches (Lagonosticta rhodopareia). Click on the section below to see the underside of one of these flat skins! The dried skin is entirely visible, as well as some bone from the wing.

•••FOLLOWER APPRECIATION GIVEAWAY•••

It’s that time again! You wonderful people are too awesome and it’s high time I did another giveaway to share the love. :) 

I’ve been making curiosity collections, kits, and grab bags and selling them in my Etsy shop for a few years now. I’ve given away lots of grab bags before but never a full collection like this! You will receive everything pictured which includes:

Small Megalodon Shark Tooth Several Tiny Fossilized Shark Teeth Fossilized Sand Shark Tooth Fossilized Alligator Tooth Fossilized Barracuda Tooth Fossilized Stingray Mouthplates Small Jar Full of Quartz Crystals Amethyst Smokey Citrine Tiny Turquoise Nuggets Moqui Marbles Small Meteorite Fragment Oregon Sunstone Baltic Amber Orange Calcite Green Calcite Chrysoprase Fluorite Pyrite Amazonite Apache Tear Obsidian Crinoid Fossils Fossilized Mollusk Shells Polished Leopard Jasper

Plus the metal tin (from a Fossil Brand watch) and any other random little treasures I come across between now and when the giveaway is over. Each of these pieces will be individually bagged and labelled for shipping.

This collection can be shipped anywhere in the world! Shipping is on me so you don’t have to worry about that.

As per Tumblr’s giveaway policies I must state that Tumblr is in no way affiliated with this giveaway and you must be 18 or older to enter or have your parent’s permission to enter. 

Silver-breasted Broadbill (Serilophus lunatus)

…a species of broadbill (Eurylaimidae) which is distributed throughout southeast Asia, Indonesia, and India, where it inhabits subtropical and tropical moist lowland and montane forests, which are typically dominated by pine, oak, and bamboo. Like other broadbills, silver-breasted broadbills are both insectivorous and carnivorous, feeding on a range of invertebrates and small vertebrates. 

Classification

Animalia-Chordata-Aves-Passeriformes-Eurylaimidae-Serilophus-S. lunatus

Evolution Cover Art For Scientific American Magazine by Katy Wiedemann