Why do flightless birds have wings?

Moment of Um

American Public Media

Kids & Family, Education For Kids

4.4 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 19 March 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fish swim. Frogs hop. Birds fly. Well, not all birds. Penguins and ostriches, for instance, can’t spread their wings and soar. So then, why do they have wings? We asked paleontologist Jingmai O’Connor to help us find the answer.

Is there a question that’s got your tail feathers all in a twist? Send it to us at BrainsOn.org/contact and we’ll find a reliable answer – we promise not to wing it!

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the brains behind brains on, this is the Moment of Um.
0:08.0	Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um, Um.
0:09.0	Moment of Um comes to you from APM Studios. I'm Paula, the Penguin Pilot.
0:16.0	Um.
0:18.0	Oh, hi there!
0:21.9	Hold on, let me shut down my engine.
0:26.8	That's better.
0:28.0	Hi, I'm Paula.
0:29.5	I'm a penguin and a pilot.
0:31.7	My plane has taken me all over the world.
0:34.1	The Sahara Desert?
0:35.3	Too dry.
0:36.5	New York City?
0:41.3	Too crowded. The North Pole? Too north.
0:48.9	But the wet and wild water park in San Diego? Perfection. Nothing like sliding tummy first into a pool that isn't filled with hungry leopard seals and numbingly cold chunks of ice. I just wish I could get my fellow penguins to come see it.
0:56.5	But they insist penguins don't fly.
1:00.0	Well, my pilot's license from the avian air school would beg to differ.
1:04.8	But I get their point.
1:06.9	Without my plane, I'd be as land-locked as the rest of them.
1:09.9	I mean, I have wings, but they're better at splashing in the tsunami tub at wet and wild than they are at flying.
1:15.5	So if us penguins and other flightless birds can't fly, why do we have these wings anyway?
1:21.5	Teddy was wondering this, too, why do flightless birds have wings?
	...

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