How many types of feathers do birds have?

Updated: Apr 13

Have you ever wondered how many feathers birds have and what they use them for?

Lucifer Hummingbird displaying its gorget

Gorget feathers of hummingbirds are highly specialized, creating the vivid colors they display.

What makes birds unique?

What makes a bird stand out from all other animal species? The beak? Squids have beaks. The ability to fly? Bats can fly (and aren't birds). Talons? Hollow bones? No and no. Birds possess a single trait that no other living organisms have. FEATHERS.

What is a feather?

A feather is a complex structure, made of intricately arranged layers of cells of keratin that differ in arrangement depending on function. Keratin is a stiff protein that forms feathers, hair, claws, fingernails, and horn sheaths.

A feather has two main features that the average person would be able to draw:

Shaft - the stiff, central spine of the feather. Consider it the backbone of the feather, that all other pieces connect to.
Vanes - the flat, broad surfaces that extend from the shaft of the two most recognized feathers.

Feathers can show a variety of shapes, like these wing feathers from a Snowy Owl.

Improve your bird knowledge!

If you want to learn more about the biology of birds, we recommend checking out The Handbook of Bird Biology from The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

Handbook of Bird Biology

What is plumage?

Plumage is the term used to describe a bird's appearance from the sum of all its feathers or just the sum of the feathers.

How are feathers classified?

Feathers are classified based upon these four elements:

Development
Adaptation
Mechanism
Evolution

Types of Feathers

Applying these critical elements gives us seven broad categories of feathers, though the pennaceous feathers of the wing and tail could be lumped into a single category.

Remiges

-flight feathers found in the wing

-typically asymmetrical

-attach to bone

-stiff and large

Rectrices

-flight feathers found in the tail

-connected to each other by ligaments

-innermost two tailfeathers attach to bone

-can be asymmetrical or symmetrical

Contour

-cover most of the surface of a bird

-streamline a birds body for flight and/or swimming

-variety of uses including communication and thermoregulation

Down

-soft and fluffy

-act as insulators

Semiplume

-likely complement the insulating function of down feathers

Bristle

-highly specialized

-usually found on the bird's head

-often found in areas that protect the eye

-may appear to look like eyelashes or whiskers

Filoplume

-smallest feathers

-monitor movement within adjacent feathers

-consider these like sensors in your vehicle

That should answer the question, but perhaps you are wondering about other feathers that do not seem to fit in any category. Often, feathers that are very unique to certain species are considered highly specialized or modified for distinct uses. For example, the "nuptial plumes" on herons and egrets are highly modified contour feathers.

There are also names given to feather tracts on the body of the bird. These are not feather types but instead are often contour feathers with a different location or purpose.