Covering Protects Eye

black and white bird sits on a silver railing with shallow focus

Biological Strategy

Pied kingfisher

AskNature Team

Image: Hans Veth / Unsplash / Free non-commercial use

Manage Impact

An impact is a high force or mechanical shock that happens over a short period of time, such as a hammer hitting a nail rather than a hand pushing slowly against a wall. Because of their speed and force, impacts don’t allow materials to slowly adjust to the force, which can lead to cracks, ruptures, and complete breakage. Therefore, living systems have strategies that can absorb, dissipate, or otherwise survive that force without the need to add large amounts of material. For example, the Toco toucan’s large beak is very lightweight, yet can withstand impacts because it’s made of a composite material with rigid foam inside and layers of a hard, fibrous material outside.

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Birds

Class Aves (“bird”): Eagles, hawks, sparrows, parrots

Birds are evolutionary engineering marvels. They are descended from dinosaurs, but are far from our idea of heavy, scaly reptiles. Of the specific adaptions that set them apart, most notable is flight—although some mammals can fly, birds take the prize for abundance in the skies. Many birds have hollow, lightweight skeletons and specially-designed wings to help them stay aloft. They also have feathers made of keratin that help them stay warm, attract mates, and improve navigation and aerodynamics in flight. In contrast to their dinosaur ancestors, they lack true teeth and have replaced them with specialized beaks and bills.

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The eye of the pied kingfisher is protected during high speed water entry via a bony plate.

“The pied kingfisher (Ceryle rudis), a highly adapted bird who feeds almost exclusively on fish, some crustaceans and aquatic insects, also has a bony plate joined to the prefrontal bone of the skull, which provides a sliding screen in front of the eye for when it plunges into the water.” (Fowler and Miller 2003:254)