Distal rhynchokinesis

Two Black-Tailed Godwits are interacting at Seaton Wetlands. It’s fascinating.

The one on the left is the male. He’s dominant, flying and displaying, and occasionally mounting the female on the right. They’re probably Icelandic-breeding birds which have spent the winter on the coast in the South-West of England.

What draws my eyes to this photograph is the bend on the maxilla (often referred to as the ‘upper mandible’) What looks like a solid beak is actually bendy and controllable. That must give them a great advantage in searching deep in the mud for invertebrate prey. The ability to bend the beak is called distal rhynchokinesis, ‘distal’ meaning end, ‘rhyncho’ meaning beak and ‘kinesis’ meaning movement.