Quick - How many fingers am I holding up?
Answer: two! Two fingers and one thumb.
But they're all digits; it's a trick question.
Anyway, if I were a bird, how many digits could I hold up?
This is a much, much harder question to answer, and it gives some surprising insight into
the ways that birds live.
Join me as we jump into the science of bird toes!
Let's start with the basic bird foot you're familiar with - the illustrious chicken.
Chickens have four toes.
Three point forward, one points back.
While I'm describing bird feet, I'll show you how to craft a proper bird foot.
Take four equal segments of straw, and four pipe cleaners.
Cut the straw pieces as we'll show, and string them on pipe cleaner.
The four toes are numbered 1 through 4, and you can tell which is which by counting the
sections.
The first toe has two sections.
Look at your thumb.
There's two sections, and two joints.
On a chicken it's that little one in the back.
The second toe has three sections.
Three knuckles, three sections.
Your index finger is a good guide if you need help.
The third toe has four knuckles and four sections!
It's like lengthening your middle finger by a whole extra section.
But we're not done yet.
The fourth toe has five knuckles and five sections!
Look at your ring finger.
Now imagine it having two more sections beyond what you have.
How cool would that be?
To finish up our chicken foot, stick all four ends into another straw and voila, bird foot
with adjustable toes.
So now we know how to identify toes 1 through 4.
Let's get back to chicken feet.
In a chicken foot, toe 1 points backwards, and toes 2 through 4 point forward, with 4
on the outside.
This is a great arrangement for walking and running.
It's also great for perching on a branch before jumping off.
It's so useful for these things that almost all birds have this arrangement of toes.
Songbirds, eagles, doves, and more.
Now let's see what else Life has in store for us.
Parrot feet are different.
It's one of the ways you can identify them.
They have toes 1 and 4 backwards and toes 2 and 3 forwards.
The benefit is for climbing and grasping.
Parrots climb through trees looking for food, and grasping a branch with two toes on each
side is very stable and strong.
They are really good climbers!
They can also grab food, holding it between their toes to get a bite to eat.
Other birds have this type of foot: woodpeckers, some owls, and cuckoos.
Those are the two biggest categories.
But when you're talking about living things, there's always interesting exceptions.
Emus only have 3 toes - the first toe is gone.
Ostriches only have 2 toes - the first AND second toe are gone.
Turacos, which live in trees and jump between branches, have transformer feet.
Their fourth toe can rotate forward or back depending on whether they need to jump or
climb!
And mousebirds take that one step further.
They can rotate their first AND fourth toes forward at the same time.
So they can have all four toes forward to hang upside down, OR three forward, OR two
forward.
To answer the question, "How many digits could a bird hold up" we REALLY need to know what
type of bird it is.
But now you're ready to stump your friends with a surprisingly difficult question to
answer!
I usually don't ask for likes, but this is too good to pass up: please use your finger
to press the thumb icon on this video.
Notice that it's not called a finger icon...
You know, let's just call it digits.
Please use your digit to press the digit up button.
You can also use your digit to subscribe for future videos.
Thanks for stopping by this week to learn what makes Life awesome!