Beaks

Beaks Articles

• How to Keep Chickens From Eating Their Own Eggs

  Chickens often eat their own eggs or the eggs of other hens. Eggs are nutritious and good-tasting, and domestic chickens have not been bred for... more »

• How to Trim a Bird's Nails

  Because numerous problems can arise from your bird's nails growing excessively sharp and long, don't put off periodic nail clipping sessions.... more »

• Tips on How to Make Bird Toys

  Toys are important diversions for birds as birds are highly curious and playful creatures. Birds need to have a variety of different toys as they... more »

• Information on the Quetzal Bird

  The Resplendent Quetzal is a rare bird found in Central America from Panama to the south of Mexico. While the term quetzal once meant only the... more »

• How to Buy a Finch Cage

  Buying a cage for your finch is one of the most important things you'll do for your pet. Consider the species' unique needs, and you can easily... more »

Wikipedia

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The beak, bill or rostrum is an external anatomical structure of birds which is used for eating and for grooming, manipulating objects, killing prey, probing for food, courtship and feeding young. The term also refers to a similar mouthpart in some monotremes, cephalopods, cetaceans, pufferfishes, turtles, Anuran tadpoles and sirens.

Anatomy
Beaks vary significantly in size and shape from species to species. The beak is composed of an upper jaw, called the maxilla, and a lower jaw, called the mandible. The jaw is made of bone, typically hollow or porous to conserve weight for flying. The outside surface of the beak is covered by a thin horny sheath of keratin called the rhamphotheca. Between the hard outer layer and the bone is a vascular layer containing blood vessels and nerve endings. The rhamphotheca can include knob, which is found above the beak of some swans, such as the Mute Swan, and some domesticated Chinese geese (pictured).

The beak has two holes called nares (nostrils) which connect to the hollow inner beak and thence to the respiratory system. The nares are usually directly above the beak. In some birds, they are in a fleshy, often waxy structure at the base of the beak called the cere (from Latin cera, meaning wax). The cere is an indicator of the reproductive cycle of budgerigars."Birds Online">

Petrels and albatrosses have external horny sheaths called naricorns that protect the nares. These are separately placed on either side of the base of the upper mandible in albatrosses, but fused, with an internal septum, on the top of the base of the upper mandible in petrels.. In the mallard, and perhaps in other ducks, there is no cere, and the nostrils are in the hard part of the beak, as a soft cere would be liable to injury when the duck dredges for food among submerged debris and stones.

On some read more at » http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beak