The Birds of Paradise’s super-black feathers are so good at absorbing light that even when we coated them in gold, a shiny metal, they still looked black.

Scientists are stunned by this bird’s feathers, which are so black they absorb 99.9% of light. By Mike Wehner. Published Jan 10th, 2018 12:31PM EST. Image: GregTheBusker.

But when the male bird faces the camera, things go black—way black. Skip to 2:34 in the video below. This bird’s feathers are so black that you can’t see any of its facial features, just ...

Birds wear many feathers. Little songbirds, like chickadees, titmice and wrens, are covered with 2,000 to 4,000 assorted sizes of feathers. Birds of prey sport 5,000 to 8,000, while swans can have ...

Among birds with white heads, the Ross’s gull lives in Antarctica and very rarely visits North America. In breeding season, these birds have white feathers that are dusted with light gray.

Hundreds of blackbirds with strange white feathers have been spotted in gardens. Birdwatchers found the odd looking blackbirds in the first national survey of birds with unusual colouring.

Last year, researchers analyzed some of these melanosomes and determined that Archaeopteryx sported black feathers. However, the team sampled just a few spots on the feather, meaning the dino-bird ...

The study analyzed feathers from five birds of paradise species, finding that when viewed from straight ahead, the feathers absorb 99.95% of light, resulting in an incredibly black appearance.

Black feathers found on other birds-of-paradise—and some found elsewhere on one of the species the team analyzed—reflect between 10 and 100 times more light than the superblack feathers do, ...

The high contrast between a downy woodpecker’s feathers make the bird very noticeable to us, ... hairy and red-bellied woodpeckers have striking black and white patterns on their backs and wings.