Kingfishers. Those little bluish birds that go splush into the water to catch tiny fish.

I'm guessing you've seen one of those slow-motion videos that shows a kingfisher from an underwater perspective, from the fish's perspective, as the bird plunges below the surface.

It's an incredible thing to see. Most of us have a good

sense of what a kingfisher looks like. The numerous kingfisher species around the world share the

same basic body shape and silhouette. So these birds are pretty recognizable. The body is stout and ovoid, or in other words, egg-shaped. The head and

bill seem a couple sizes too large, like a kid's drawing where the proportions are way off.

Oh wow, Timmy, you're such a good artist. Is that, is, is, is that supposed to be a bird?

Uh, good job, buddy. Hey, but you drew the be a bird? Uh, good job, buddy.

Hey, but you drew the head a little too big, don't you think?

Then Timmy cries and runs out of the room.

But seriously, one time I did an illustration of a kingfisher, and I was really careful to get the proportions just right, using reference photos and all that.

But when I looked at my finished

drawing, the bird's head looked comically oversized. But that's just how it is, for real.

As with many types of bird, the bill of the kingfisher is one of its defining features. It's massive,

straight and sharply pointed. It's spear-shaped. In quite a few

kingfisher species, the lower part of the bill, the lower mandible, curves upward to meet the

relatively straight upper mandible. So with these spear-shaped bills, you'd think that kingfishers

would spear their prey, right? But nope.

They don't pierce fish or other prey with their beak. A kingfisher actually opens its beak up in

the instant before impact, using it more like tongs than a spear. But I've seen multiple

sources online saying that kingfishers spear their prey, sources like a

web page with fun facts about kingfishers for kids. This is pretty lame because instead of fun

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