Gulls were assessed as sentinels of contamination in the coastal zone of the Southern Baltic, research material being obtained from dead birds collected on Polish beaches and near fishing ports in 2009-2012. In feathers and blood of four gull species: herring gull (Larus argentatus), common gull (Larus canus), black-headed gull (Chroicocephalus ridibundus), and great black-backed gull (Larus ma...

For as long as dinosaurs have been known to exist, there has been speculation about their appearance. Fossil feathers can preserve the morphology of color-imparting melanosomes, which allow color patterns in feathered dinosaurs to be reconstructed. Here, we have mapped feather color patterns in a Late Jurassic basal paravian theropod dinosaur. Quantitative comparisons with melanosome shape and ...

West Nile virus (WNV) is a public health threat and has caused the death of thousands of North American birds. As such, surveillance for WNV has been ongoing, utilizing numerous biological specimens and testing methods. Nonvascular (i.e., fully grown) feathers would provide a simple method of collection from either dead or live birds of all ages and molt cycles, with presumably less biosafety r...

Given their central role in mercury (Hg) excretion and suitability as reservoirs, bird feathers are useful Hg biomonitors. Nevertheless, the interpretation of Hg concentrations is still questioned as a result of a poor knowledge of feather physiology and mechanisms affecting Hg deposition. Given the constraints of feather availability to ecotoxicological studies, we tested the effect of intra-i...

Feathers are one of the integument appendages that form the outer covering, or plumage, on birds. The goslings hatch with a downy coat of feathers formed in embryonic development. They moult the natal plumage into juvenile feathers between 3-5 weeks of age and than moult that juvenile plumage into adult plumage between 8-11 weeks of age. Feather weight of an adult goose makes up about 6.2% of i...

Feathers are complex assemblages of multiple morphological innovations. Recent research on the development and evolution of feathers has produced new insights into the origin and diversification of the morphological innovations in feathers. In this article, I review and discuss the contribution of three different factors to the evolution of morphological innovations in feathers: feather tubular...

Microbodies associated with fossil feathers, originally attributed to microbial biofilm, have been reinterpreted as melanosomes: pigment-containing, eukaryotic organelles. This interpretation generated hypotheses regarding coloration in non-avian and avian dinosaurs. Because melanosomes and microbes overlap in size, distribution and morphology, we re-evaluate both hypotheses. We compare melanos...

background one group of significant enzymes produced by bacillus genus are alkaline proteases with several important applications in the daily life as well as common industries such as food, detergents, leather, alcohol and beer production and medical and sanitary industries, beside wastewater treatment, , biotransformation, hydrolyzed proteins and oil manufacturing. objectives in this paper, k...

STUDIES of the regeneration of feathers after plucking show the existence of considerable differences in the time intervals before the commencement of regeneration in individual feathers. In normal moulting, the development of the new feather starts before the old feather is shed, and as growth of the new feather continues and it emerges from the follicle, it may frequently be seen projecting w...

Some nonavian theropod dinosaurs were at least partially covered in feathers or filamentous protofeathers. However, a complete understanding of feather distribution among theropod dinosaurs is limited because feathers are typically preserved only in lagerstätten like that of Solnhofen, Germany or Liaoning, China. Such deposits possess clear taphonomic biases toward small-bodied animals, limitin...