How far can an owl actually rotate its head?
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Owls ought to have the ability to rotate their heads a full 360 levels, in accordance with an evaluation of the birds’ skeletons and muscle groups – however some researchers nonetheless have their doubts.
It has lengthy been identified that owls have extraordinarily cell necks. The birds have been recorded turning their heads entirely upside down, as an example, or rotating them through 270 degrees whereas retaining their our bodies stationary. But Aleksandra Panyutina at Tel Aviv University in Israel and her colleague Alexander Kuznetsov, an unbiased researcher, suspect an owl’s neck is extra versatile nonetheless.
The two researchers obtained the our bodies of eight deceased owls – belonging to a complete of 5 completely different species – from two tutorial institutes in Russia. They then took CT scans of every chicken as they rotated its head.
This revealed that owls depend on two methods throughout a head flip. First, they rotate a number of the joints between the bones of their neck, which permits them to show their heads as much as 126 levels. Secondly, they bodily twist their backbone, giving it a spiral staircase-like look. Although this coiling severely contorts the backbone, Panyutina and Kuznetsov found the movement doesn’t injury the bones, ligaments or muscle groups within the owl’s neck – even when the top turns in a full circle.
As such, Panyutina is assured that “live owls can perform a 360-degree turn”.
A set of CT scans reveals how an owl’s backbone coils as its head turns 360 levels
Aleksandra A. Panyutin/Alexander N. Kuznetsov
Michael Habib on the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who has researched a number of the diversifications that enable owls to perform extreme head turns, says the brand new research is “very cool”. But he doesn’t suppose we’ll ever see an owl’s head rotate utterly round.
“They were asking whether there’s anything in the bone and muscle that would necessarily prevent a 360-degree turn, and they found that the answer is, somewhat surprisingly, no,” says Habib. But he thinks different anatomical options will most likely forbid such turns. Critically, Habib says, the nerves working up the neck can be broken throughout a 360-degree spin, doubtlessly leaving an owl unable to fly for a number of days whereas the nerves healed. “Nerves don’t like being stretched,” he says.
However, Panyutina disagrees this could be an issue, notably for nerves, such because the vagus nerve, that go excessive of the neck muscle groups. Their placement means these nerves wouldn’t stretch because the bones beneath the muscle groups twisted and contorted. “The vagus runs freely over the muscles and so easily finds a shorter way during extreme turns,” she says.
To settle the matter, researchers might should carry out experiments with dwelling owls. Panyutina proposes coaching the birds to deal with a selected goal, after which putting them on a rotating platform to see whether or not they can retain deal with the goal by way of a 360-degree flip.
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