This phalarope, a type of shorebird, has a weird procedure for scoring dinner. First it spins in the water to create a mini whirlpool that dredges up tiny floating insects and crustaceans.
Robert Lewis
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This phalarope, a type of shorebird, has a weird procedure for scoring dinner. First it spins in the water to create a mini whirlpool that dredges up tiny floating insects and crustaceans. Then it wicks droplets full of the tasty morsels up its long beak and into its mouth. Researchers were never quite sure how that suction happened, but scientists got to the bottom of it using a robotic beak. Writing in a recent issue of Science, they say the key is a chopstick-like motion that ratchets the droplets upward using surface tension—the same thing that makes water bead on tiles. A clever trick of evolution, no doubt, but wouldn't a straw-shaped beak have worked just as well?
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