Paradise birds have fur that is like a black hole

American researchers liken the fur of the broad tail like a black hole, absorbing 99.95% of the light through.

Research on the black feather of paradise birds began when Richard Prum, a scientist at Yale University, USA, saw a bird in the museum and noticed its color. It "is like a black hole on the shelf," Gizmod said. Prum realized that black was not created by a single pigment. He and his colleagues believe that paradise birds evolve "super black" feathers to exalt other colors.

The empty paradise bird shows off "super black" fur to seduce female birds.(Video: BBC).

"In this case, the motive is sex selection . The male tries to attract the female. The female is allowed to choose the object to be paired and they are very picky. A bad feather is enough for them to refuse. The pair must find a way to make their coat look more eye-catching to the female, " McCoy explained.

Through scanning electron microscopy and computed tomography, the team observed differences in shape between ordinary black hairs and super-black hairs. Ordinary black feathers are only single filaments pointed out from the hairs, while super black fur has a lot of small live.

The micro structure is an example of 'structural absorption' , similar to the world's darkest material Vantablack, built by the engineering team at Surrey NanoSystems. "The light is completely absorbed by the feather. In this case, the hairs absorb 99.95% of the light directly through them. It seems the need to find a mate has forced the bird of paradise to evolve to "They create their own super-black materials from keratin protein. The results of the study make me think we can produce super-black structures with cheaper materials , " McCoy said.

In the report published in Nature Communications on January 9, the authors emphasized the need for further research to understand the role of feathers on the behavior of paradise birds. But if their hypothesis is correct, evolution has created strange shapes, especially in this bird.'They evolved perfectly for the purpose of looking beautiful in the eyes of the female,' McCoy concluded.