ReviewInterface focus2017
Features of owl wings that promote silent flight.
Review in Interface focus, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 124 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bio-Inspired Blade Serrations: A Review on Owl-Based Strategies for Aeroacoustic Noise Mitigation.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Abundance, Diet and Foraging of Galápagos Barn Owls (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2025Article
- Nocturnal camouflage through background matching against moonlight.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A high-quality reference genome for the Ural Owl (Strix uralensis) enables investigations of cell cultures as a genomic resource for endangered species.GigaScience · 2025Article
- Towards silent and efficient flight by combining bioinspired owl feather serrations with cicada wing geometry.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Model organisms and systems in neuroethology: one hundred years of history and a look into the future.Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology · 2024Review
- A Comparison of Aerodynamic Parameters in Two Subspecies of the American Barn Owl (Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2022Article
- Article
- Organismal Design and Biomimetics: A Problem of Scale.Biomimetics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Biological Functions of Rat Ultrasonic Vocalizations, Arousal Mechanisms, and Call Initiation.Brain sciences · 2021Review
- New genome assembly of the barn owl (Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
- Evolution and Ecology of Silent Flight in Owls and Other Flying Vertebrates.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2020Review
- How localized force spreads on elastic contour feathers.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2019Article
- Flow Features of the Near Wake of the Australian Boobook Owl (Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Owls are an order of birds of prey that are known for the development of a silent flight. We review here the morphological adaptations of owls leading to silent flight and discuss also aerodynamic properties of owl wings. We start with early observations (until 2005), and then turn to recent advances. The large wings of these birds, resulting in low wing loading and a low aspect ratio, contribute to noise reduction by allowing slow flight. The serrations on the leading edge of the wing and the velvet-like surface have an effect on noise reduction and also lead to an improvement of aerodynamic performance. The fringes at the inner feather vanes reduce noise by gliding into the grooves at the lower wing surface that are formed by barb shafts. The fringed trailing edge of the wing has been shown to reduce trailing edge noise. These adaptations to silent flight have been an inspiration for biologists and engineers for the development of devices with reduced noise production. Today several biomimetic applications such as a serrated pantograph or a fringed ventilator are available. Finally, we discuss unresolved questions and possible future directions.
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