June 5th, 2023 at 5:29PM
asker

Anonymous asked:

whats ur favorite bird?

gerardtweets:

anon you have just opened pandoraโ€™s box

My favorite particular bird is the Pfeilstorch! This is a piece of taxidermy from the early 1800s currently on display at the University of Rostock in Germany.

image

In the early 1800s, natural historians and biologists did not know where birds went for the winter. They just disappeared. Some people thought they hibernated like bears, or turned into fish (!!) or flew to the moon (!!)

Cut to 1822 when a this bird was found in Germany. It was still alive, walking around with this spear in its neck. The spear was made from wood that only grows in central Africa. The German biologists determined that the bird had been speared in central Africa and then flew north to Germany. This was how they figured out that birds migrate with the changing seasons.

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  22. gerardtweets posted this
    whats ur favorite bird?...anon you have just opened pandora’s box
9,422 notes #u know there was one tenured professor in germany who wrote his dissertation on how cranes fly to the moon every winter#who was like THIS DOESNT NECESSARILY MEAN they don’t go to the moon#WE DONT KNOW WHAT KIND OF TREES GROW ON THE MOON
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