Anna's hummingbird
A small hummingbird has been found to "sing" through its tail feathers rather than its voice-box in the same way a wind musician plays a note on a clarinet.
Scientists have found that the Anna's hummingbird of the American south-west makes a "chirping" sound by dive-bombing at speeds of 50mph to cause wind to rush through its splayed tail feathers. The feathers quiver in the same way that the reed of a clarinet vibrates when a musician plays the instrument to produce a musical note. In this way, the bird is able to produce a noise that is louder than anything its own tiny voice-box can make.
Hear the Anna's hummingbird's 'chirp':
The researchers said it is the first time that any bird has been shown to make a deliberate noise in this way, but they now believe that there may be other species of hummingbirds that can sing through their feathers.
"This is a new mechanism for sound production in birds," said Christopher Clark, a doctoral student at the University of California, Berkeley, who was part of the study that revealed the hummingbird's secretive tail song.
"The Anna's hummingbird is the only hummingbird for which we know all the details, but there are a number of other species with similarly-shaped tail feathers that may use their tail morphology in producing sounds," said Mr Clark.
The scientists used high-speed cameras to record a male hummingbird's mating display as he dive-bombed a caged female or a stuffed dummy. The video showed how be unfurled his tail feathers for a split second at the nadir of his dive, which corresponded with a short chirp lasting about 60 milliseconds.