How do owls twist their heads all the way around without dying? At last we know.

You probably live that owls can spread out their heads a remarkable 270 degrees in either guidance . It ’s practically their stylemark — but it ’s a move that by all measure should ensue in a massive diagonal or intercalation , the solution of displume blood vessel lining and the onset of fatal coagulum . Nobody ’s understood the physiology that countenance owls do this — until now .

eventually , a collaboration between aesculapian illustrator and neurological tomography expert has yielded the answer — and it has to do with the owls ’ noteworthy bone structure and vascular internet .

neck are n’t supposed to be capable to move the path owls ’ do , as many subject area on humans and other brute have proved . Tests on people who have hurt from sloppy chiropractic adjustments , whiplash injury , and even jarring roller coaster rides show that such sudden head and neck gyrations can be extremely detrimental ( if not fateful ) . These extreme contortions can cut off blood supplying and damage thin blood vessels .

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take care to figure out how owls are able to draw off such a remarkable feat , a multidisciplinary team from Johns Hopkins collaborate on a study that ’s determine to look in the February 1 government issue of Science . Led by aesculapian illustrator Fabian de Kok - Mercado and neuroradiologist Philippe Gailloud , the team has propose that several distinct biological adaptations make the extreme twist potential — and they all have to do with the bone social system and vascular connection that hold the owl ’s top - lumbering head .

To conduct the bailiwick , the researchers used angiography and CT scan when examining the heads and necks of snowy , stop , and great horned owls , all of whom died from natural cause . In monastic order to physically see what was actually hap inside the hooter ’ heads , they injected a dyestuff that enhance X - electron beam CAT scan of the stock vessels being analyse .

Then , by mimic blood flow , the scientist could see that rakehell vessels at the pedestal of the head ( just under the jaw bone ) were get increasingly great as the dye was introduced , but before the fluid pooled in reservoirs . There is no tantamount to this in human anatomy ; in fact , human arteries tend to shrink as they ramify out — and they sure enough do n’t inflate out .

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The research worker surmise that these expandable blood source are what enables the owls to pool their blood , an adaptation that grant them to make radical gyration of the head — and all without cutting off their free energy supplying . In go , the supporting complex vascular internet minimizes disruption in blood flow .

Among the anatomic variations discovered were bony holes in the vertebrae — hollow cavities in the cervix where a major artery feeds the brain . These were about 10 time gravid in diameter than the vertebral artery traveling through them . This extra space in the cross foraminae ( the hollow surrounding the vertebral arteries ) provide owls with a curing of cushioning air pockets that grant the arterial blood vessel to move around when it ’s misrepresented . And in fact , 12 of the bird of night ’s 14 cervical vertebrae have this feature .

And interestingly , the scientist also discovered that the hooter ’s vertebral arteria enters the cervix higher up equate to other birds . Normally , it ’s the twelfth cervical vertebrae , but for the owl , it ’s the 14th ( thus allowing for more vessel room and slack ) .

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Another non - human - same feature of speech included small vas connection between the carotid and vertebral arteries that set aside lineage to be exchanged between the two blood vessels . This let for continuous blood flowing to the brain — even in the event that a route is blocked during utmost neck rotary motion .

In future , the researchers will study hawks to see if they have similar features .

We ’ll add a nexus the paper once it ’s online .

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