Why do hawks have talons

Once they've landed, falcons "will quickly pluck the neck area and attempt to kill prey swiftly by breaking the neck with a bite attack. Osprey have large, curved talons, almost like fishhooks — which is appropriate because they specialize in catching fish, swooping down and hitting them just below the water's surface.

In addition to expanding understanding of these much-loved birds, the findings could help researchers understand the birds' dinosaur ancestors. The researchers are now studying how dinosaur claws reflected their hunting and feeding habits. Fowler, Elizabeth A. Freedman, John B.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. About Connect. Search Search for: Search. Translate that statistic into a batting average, and a bird of prey is batting.

In other words, the raptor strikes out. Remember, the Latin word for raptor means see by force, and these birds do that quite well. Golden Eagle talons can have a grip pressure as high as pounds per square inch Hold your hand in front of you with your fingers open.

Now grab something. We make an effort to grip things by contracting our finger muscles. Birds of prey make an effort to open their talons. Once the wrapping mechanism is sprung, the talons snap tight and dig in. Letting go is up to the bird.

Talking Talons with Hawks and Eagles The subject of how a bird of prey uses its talons is not for the faint of heart, but this is nature. In raptors, the locking mechanism serves a vital purpose in securing their kill. Imagine that all the stars have aligned for one of our raptor friends and they have managed to find and catch its chosen prey, not always a guarantee by the way.

The sharp talons have successfully grasped the prey and now penetrate it. The prey struggles to escape, and those locking tendons are triggered to grasp more firmly.

Any attempt to pull away, results in the tightening of that ratchet type grip. In many cases that tightening response is exaggerated and hawks will often repeatedly hammer those talons into the vital organs causing massive damage and even shock. Ultimately this leads to a rapid death and life sustaining meal for the carnivore.

At this point you are either happily engrossed in learning about how talons function, or you are completely turned off about what happens in this cycle of life. This is where the talons would come in handy for a writer such as myself. You are getting ready to leave my article, when kapow! You simply cannot escape and must finish reading my article. Oops sorry, daydreaming. But you are here still reading unless you managed to escape, and if you did, you are like many who escape the clutches of the raptor.

So do all birds of prey use their talons the same way? Not exactly. The experience of having a raptor lock onto you with a death grip is all at once heart pounding and excruciating, especially if you are by yourself more on that in future writings. This should serve as a warning against assisting or handling any wild raptor without proper hand protection, and one of the best arguments against why birds of prey are not considered suitable for pets.