Oh god everybody buckle up here come the bird feet

Anisodactyly

The most common bird-feet formation, with three toes forward and one toe back. You see this with most perching birds, wading birds, swimming birds, and raptors.

Zygodactyly

A bird-feet formation occurring primarily in parrots. The middle two toes are forward, and the outer two toes are pointed back. Birds with these feet tend to spend a lot of time clambering oh-so-gracefully around trees instead of just perching.

Syndactyly

Three toes pointing forward, one back, but the outer and middle forward-pointing toes are fused, because kingfishers.

Heterodactyly

Like the zygodactyly found in parrots, but instead of having the outer toes pointing back, there are two toes pointing back and then two pointing forward. This only happens in a group known by the weirdly-metal and made-up sounding name of “trogons,” which is basically quetzals, which are weirdly-metal and made-up looking birds.

Pamprodactyly

All four toes pointing forward, because fuck everything. Found in swifts, because they’re not from this planet.

Okay, it’s not because they’re aliens, it’s because they do this.

A lot.

fun fact about swift-feet- their fourth-toe can still rotate backwards like a typical bird foot but it doesn’t make any sense to do so because they’re never gonna perch, only cling.

(I know this bc I had the joy of extracting a swift from a net and Wow the Feet, they were a mess)

#animals #ref