Mark My Bird

How and why have birds diversified? By measuring the shapes of bird bills you can help us to understand the processes that resulted in the world’s 10,000 living bird species.

How you can help

Our team of researchers, based at the University of Sheffield, are taking 3D scans of the bills of all of the world’s bird species from museum collections. The 3D scans are incredibly detailed but before we can use them they require a process called landmarking. Landmarking involves placing points on features of the bill that are common to all specimens. We can use the landmarks to mathematically describe the shape of bills so that we can compare and test how they differ among species. By landmarking our 3D images you can contribute to real science. The digitised data will help us to understand how and why the 10,000 species of birds diversified.

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