Replicas of gannet skulls from the collection at the Smithsonian Institution allowed researchers to measure the forces a bird’s skill experiences during a dive. (Photo by Sunny Jung/Virginia Tech)

The title may seem silly, but I can’t help that a whole family of birds are alternatingly called boobies or gannets – most of us have heard of the Blue-footed Booby, but there are several other species, all of which hunt for fish by diving, head first, at extremely high speeds from many meters above the water. For a human entering water at fifty miles an hour, a neck injury would be a certainty, and even organ damage could occur, but boobies/gannets accomplish the dives plenty of times during a day’s hunting, with no apparent problem. It seems that their physiology, as well as the way they contract their muscles during the plunge, save them from harm. From the Smithsonian Insider:

New research from Virginia Tech, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, the National Museum of Rio de Janeiro and the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences helps explain how the birds manage these high-speed dives.

“We were interested in what happens when objects plunge into water, so we looked for examples in nature; the gannets are incredible,” said Sunny Jung, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and mechanics in the College of Engineering and an expert in fluid biomechanics; he has also studied dogs’ unusual drinking technique and how shrimp use microscopic bubbles to hunt.

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