#head bobbing

[the-gif-organizer]

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Very important questions!! What's the head-bob thing that birds do? Like, what's the reason they do it and why is it more visible in certain genera? Do we know how old this behavior is, and would any non-avian dinosaurs have done it?

So! the head bob thing! is caused because birds have big brains. huge brains. they take more space in the head than mammal brains do (and, yes, this is on top of the higher neuronal density thing)

so, birds lost a lot of eye musculature so they could make space for said brains

but they still needed to move their eyes

so, the whole head bob thing is part of a complex series of balances and muscle movements that allow birds to move their heads rapidly to see things without moving their eyes, and to remain balanced

we don't know when that evolved in nonavian dinosaurs, but it seems likely in at least paraves on, so dromaeosaurs probably did the thing (raptors)

[india422]

Hmm… 👀😎

[stariikat]

Head Bobbing practice~~ still a bit rough but it doesn’t look bad lol

getting a bit used to animating now :3

[thecinematichorse]

Hollywood has never really had a handle on natural horse behaviour, but it certainly is good at training horses to do tricks for the camera. 

So, what do we have here? 

Head bobbing to say yes. 

Head shaking to say no. 

Chewing for speech. 

Mirror self recognition. 

Pawing.

And you know what? It’s all pretty cute here, and part of the comedy.

Video source.

[machetelanding]

[van-cortlandt]

David Crosby // The Byrds, 1965

[tigersage]

“Animating Chewy in Clip Studio Paint”