club-winged manakin© "club-winged manakin" by Gary T. Leavens is licensed under BY-SA 4.0. Birds make beautiful chirping songs, but have you ever seen them make music with their wings? That is one of ...

Four years ago, a researcher reported a bizarre example of sexual selection in a rare South American bird: The male attracts the female by rubbing specialized wing feathers -- more than 100 cycles per ...

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Hummingbirds and rattlesnakes move parts of their bodies at amazing speeds. But male club-winged manakins -- colorful, sparrow-sized South American birds -- have them both beat, ...

With feathers that resonate at precisely 1,500 hertz, the male club-winged manakin is perhaps the bird world's most perfectly tuned example of sexual selection. By pinning down the frequency, ...

Males of a South American forest bird make courtship music with built-in scrapers—just as insects do. This is the first example of a vertebrate producing sound in this manner, scientists report. A ...

The small and colorful manakin has perplexed scientists for more than century. New research shows how this strange bird that fascinated Charles Darwin makes sound during courtship — not with song, but ...

A bird that lives in the Ecuadorian rain forest attracts mates by striking its wing feathers together behind its back, researchers say. Birds and other vertebrates usually court partners by expelling ...

Cool dance moves and a sweet tune have always been a good way to impress the ladies. Even for birds, it turns out. In May’s National Geographic, Dan Koepel profiles the club-winged manakin, which does ...

This story appears in the May 2012 issue of National Geographic magazine. To see a manakin in action is to encounter a spectacular song and dance act in the middle of a tropical forest. About half of ...

Birds make beautiful chirping songs, but have you ever seen them make music with their wings? That is one of the skills of the club-winged manakin! These birds make music with their wings by vibrating ...