Mondo Knows Facts
Owls fly silently due to comb-like serrations on their wing feathers
Feather serrations break up air turbulence to muffle wing flapping noise.
The leading edge of an owl primary flight feather features tiny comb-like structures that break large air turbulence into smaller currents. Coupled with soft down on the upper wing surface and a velvety fringe on trailing edges, owls swoop down on prey in total acoustic silence.
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Tags: owl, birds, feathers
Owls fly silently due to comb-like serrations on their wing feathers: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Feather serrations break up air turbulence to muffle wing flapping noise. The figure is taken from Natural History Museum, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a animals fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Animals shelf, one of 1,090 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
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- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.