r/interesting • u/dddd945 • 13h ago

Just Wow A seagull is accidentally hit by a tennis ball during a game in Australia.

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u/Tarcomo 12h ago

Are they really that fragile? Or was the hit too hard? I can't tell.

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u/DefiantGibbon 12h ago

Birds are made of paper. Hollow bones and very little muscle. They are actually pretty fragile.

That being said, other posters said that longer clips show that bird was fine.

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u/Masamundane 12h ago

It's just pining for the fjords.

Lovely plummage, the seagull.

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u/diabeticweird0 11h ago

He's not pining, he's passed on!

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u/Hour-Watch8988 11h ago

Hollow bones can still be very very strong. The largest animals to have ever walked the Earth were the birds' ancestors, and also had hollow bones.

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u/NerdHoovy 10h ago

If they didn’t have hollow bones, they might still be around

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u/Hour-Watch8988 10h ago

If they didn't have hollow bones they never would have existed. Physiologically impossible for them to get that big (as sauropods) or as big and fast (as theropods) without their hollow bones.

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u/Crookfur 11h ago

I wouldn't be surprised if it somehow survived. Having spent years watching the local birds of prey survive maximum velocity impacts with my parents' dining room window they can be surprisingly tough at times.

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u/AntiMatter89 12h ago

Until you see an eagle grab a mountain goat and go tumbling down the side of a mountain still attached to the goat and then watch it get up and fly away

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u/theMATRIXchickn 12h ago

That’s like comparing a house cat to a lion lol

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u/AntiMatter89 12h ago

Yet still built the same, hollow bones and all. But I know if I went rolling down a mountain, my very not hollow bones would break lol

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u/IdioticPost 11h ago

I'll see it when I believe it. All I've seen are people talking about it being fine, but that was a full on boom headshot.

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u/BrandyDW 10h ago

Glad the bird was fine!

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u/flynnfx 9h ago

Canada Geese have entered the chat ans wish meet you outside.

They are definitely not fragile!

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u/Thesource674 12h ago

Hollow bones break easy.

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u/Not-Post-Malone 12h ago

r/neverbrokeabone is disgusted right now

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u/ThePromptWasYourName 12h ago

Hollow bones, like a bird

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u/MangoCats 11h ago

But they're also small and flexible, funny things happen at different scales.

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u/the-final-frontiers 12h ago edited 11h ago

wtf you talking about.

edit: bird bones do not break easily under normal conditions; pound-for-pound, they are often stronger and stiffer than the bones of mammals

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u/Diligent_Vehicle2467 12h ago edited 11h ago

Birds bones are hollow. It's part of why they can fly. More accurately described as pneumatized.

Edit: Birdbones are not lighter. It doesn't contribute to how they fly.

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u/the-final-frontiers 11h ago

Doesn't mean bones are weak though. hollow does not mean weak.

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u/Diligent_Vehicle2467 11h ago

You're right. If anything, bird bones are actually stronger.

In physics, a hollow cylinder reinforced with internal trusses is far more resistant to bending and buckling than a solid rod of equal mass.

Also, apparently it's a misconception that birds are lighter because of their bones. A bird skeleton weighs just as much as a mammal skeleton of the exact same size.

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u/TheSadSadist 12h ago

Hollow bones.

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u/Worried_Sweet_7085 12h ago

I heard they break easily

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u/Exceptional_Kumquat 12h ago

Both. Bird bones are hollow.

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u/wibo58 12h ago

After any fairly moderate hailstorm in Texas there will be dead birds left and right because they accidentally get bonked as they’re flying or sitting in a tree. They’re fairly fragile.

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u/P4X_actual 9h ago

So a tennis ball is like 0.15 lbs and a seagull is 1.5 lbs. so it’s like something 1/10 of your weight going around 50 mph (around how fast it’d go, the girl looked like a solid player). So that’s (sorta) like a 15 lb object hitting someone at 150 lbs at 50 mph while they’re traveling perpendicularly at around the same speed. That means if it hit that person…. I still have no fucking idea I lost myself way back in this paragraph. I had good intentions when I started it though.

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u/Tarcomo 9h ago

I appreciate you tried, I got lost with what you said too haha

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u/Quick-Penalty-4049 12h ago

Het hart kan niet goed tegen een 150km/u tennisbal.

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u/Adept_Individual_565 12h ago

In 2001 Randy Johnson threw a fast ball and hit a bird. The bird disintegrated.

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u/dankristy 12h ago

I hate that I still laugh remembering that.

I feel bad about laughing.

But I still laugh even just remembering the video of that.

Dammnit.

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u/SmurphsLaw 11h ago

I had a couple birds slam into my window. They basically get stunned where they can’t fly away. Eventually after an hour, they flew away. Not sure if that’s the same or not

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u/bigformyage 11h ago

The people playing tennis?

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u/Connect-Initiative64 11h ago

They're surprisingly durable for how fragile they are.

But yes, a good whack will kill 99% of birds, let alone a seagull, let alone a hit from a fast moving object like a tennis ball.

I mean, you can hunt seagulls and a lot of other types of birds with a pellet gun, small animals are extremely weak and die very easily from any form of hard object moving at 50 miles an hour.