Hello and welcome.

This is the Science of Birds.

I am your host, Ivan Philipson.

The Science of Birds podcast is a lighthearted exploration of bird biology for lifelong learners.

This episode, which is number 69, is all about the avian skeleton, bird bones.

So this is an episode about some basic anatomy of birds.

I've done a few episodes in this category before,

like the one where I talked about eggs,

the one about bird vision,

and a couple episodes on feathers.

We have quite a few more anatomical topics to cover in the future.

Muscles, the respiratory system, digestive system, and so on. But today,

it's bones, bones, bones. But before we jump in, I want to own up to a couple mistakes I made

recently, a couple boo-boos. First, there was a scientific study I mentioned in episode 67. That episode is titled,

Awesome Things We Learned About Birds in 2022. The study had to do with great busters in Spain

eating plants to self-medicate. Well, a colleague of mine pointed out that this study has

some serious flaws. The researchers didn't

really have the data to back up their claims. I should have caught that, and I'm sorry I didn't.

The second boo-boo I made was in the last episode, episode 68, which was all about hornbills.

At the very end of the episode, in the outro, I made a joke about the mutualistic relationship

between the Egyptian plover and the Nile crocodile.

Even though I was joking, I was basically perpetuating an old myth.

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