What's special
about owls?
They can turn
their heads all the way around?
They can
swallow mice whole?
Besides having the best night vision of all birds, owls also have a satellite dish built into their face. The circular pattern of feathers on there? That acts as a dish, focusing the sound and giving them what may be the best directional hearing in the world. And even weirder, those feather patterns can also, no kidding, be individually adjusted to increase reception.
How well does
this work? Let's put it this way: An owl can hear a mouse stepping on a twig
from 75 feet away. Owls also have an incredible sense of sound elevation, meaning they can detect
the height from which sound is emanating, because one ear hole is placed higher
than the other. All of this is to pinpoint the exact location of the owl's
prey, which in fact works so well that the bird can make in-flight course
corrections to strike at its victim.
And keep in
mind, we're talking about a nocturnal hunter -- they're using this finely tuned
sense of hearing to take down prey that the owl can't even see. So, basically
we're looking at a flying Daredevil but with a slew of built-in razor blades on
its hands a la Wolverine.
To make matters
even worse for the criminal element, owls also happen to have special serrated
feathers that allow them to fly silently like a stealth fighter. Furthermore,
they have the lowest wing-loading ratio of any bird, meaning
they can fly extremely slow if they need to, or carry large loads. The owl
superhero wouldn't need to zoom in like Superman or swing around like
Spider-Man -- he'd just slowly, silently glide over the area, hearing
everything and casting an ominous shadow in the night sky.
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