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Feather
also called bird feather
About
A feather is a lightweight plumage growth that measures about 5.9 inches long while weighing a tiny fraction of an ounce.
Feather sizes vary widely among bird species, from tiny down plumes under 0.5 inches (1.3 cm) to peacock display feathers exceeding 5 feet (1.5 m). Flight and tail feathers are generally the longest and stiffest on any given bird, while insulating down feathers remain short and soft. Although an individual feather carries almost no mass, the combined weight of a bird's entire plumage often exceeds the weight of its skeleton.
From Wikipedia
Feathers are epidermal growths that form a distinctive outer covering, or plumage, on both avian (bird) and some non-avian dinosaurs and other archosaurs. They are the most complex integumentary structures found in vertebrates and an example of a complex evolutionary novelty.
Read more on Wikipedia →Text from Wikipedia’s “Feather” article, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Every comparison with a feather
1 on the site
Questions people ask
- How big is a feather?
- A standard feather measures 5.9 inches (15 cm) long, 0.04 inches (1 mm) thick, and weighs 0.00028 ounces (0.008 g). This makes it about the length of a common pen, though it weighs less than a single drop of water.
Weight
0.00028 oz (8 mg)
- Length
- 5.91 in (15 cm)
- Height
- 0.039 in (1 mm)
Quick answer
A standard feather measures 5.9 inches (15 cm) long, 0.04 inches (1 mm) thick, and weighs 0.00028 ounces (0.008 g). This makes it about the length of a common pen, though it weighs less than a single drop of water.
Typical figures, the same ones every comparison on the site uses; real ones vary.
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