Skeptophilia

The diversity you find among birds is really remarkable. There are differences in bill shape, from the weird angled beaks of flamingos, to t...

As an avid birdwatcher, I've learned many of the vocalizations of our local species.  Some, especially the migratory species we only hea...

One of the most mesmerizing sights in nature is the collective motion of large groups of animals. I remember watching films by Jacques Coust...

Last night I dreamed that our local mall had been converted into a giant used book store.  (Something I would entirely approve of.)  We were...

One of the things I learned from 32 years of teaching biology is that many non-human animals are way smarter than we give them credit for --...

I've been an avid birdwatcher for many years, and have been fortunate enough to travel to some amazingly cool places in search of avifau...

When I was in Ecuador in 2019, I was blown away by its natural beauty.  The cloud forests of the mid-altitude Andes are, far and away, the m...

One difficulty in building evolutionary trees of life from fossil evidence is the fact that "simpler" doesn't necessarily mean...

Regular readers of Skeptophilia  might recall that about a year ago, paleontologists announced the discovery of a bird fossil from northeast...

If last week's post about the Demon Ducks of Australia wasn't sufficient to scare you into stopping your project to build a working ...