Dry-cleaning in birds

Patricia Yang^1*

¹Power Mechanical Engineering, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan

* Presenter:Patricia Yang, email:peijyang@pme.nthu.edu.tw

Ectoparasites such as mites and lice are common in the feathers of birds. These parasites are challenged to remove in drought areas, but some birds have evolved ways to clean their feathers without water. In this talk, I will discuss two mechanisms of dry-cleaning in birds. Land fowls utilize sand bathing to remove mites. During sand bathing, birds flap their wings in the sand at 1 to 10 Hz. The frequency has weak independence on body mass. An 88-kg ostrich flaps ten times faster than a 0.02-kg bee-eater. Larger birds have wider wingspans but also a greater rotational moment of inertia than smaller birds. Besides sand bathing in birds, I will briefly introduce a comb-like structure in birds' claws, called a pectinate claw. Specific species of birds clean their head regions with the pectinate claw. The research sheds light on eco-friendly dry-cleaning technologies.

Keywords: dry cleaning, biomechanics, bioinspired