Egg tooth..

Have you ever thought about how the little chicks manage to get out of the egg? I had no idea what this was all about, until I started looking carefully at the baby birds and once when seeing a fresh penguin chick, I asked; what's that little thingy at the tip of the bill? It's an egg tooth, I was told. I suddenly had a small "aha" moment right there. So that's how they get out of the egg! If you think about it, really, how else could they break through the membrane and the hard shell? This tooth is not a real tooth, but a hard tooth-like projection at the tip of the bill (or the snout of embryonic reptiles). This 'tooth' will fall off some days after hatching. As far as I know, only the Kiwi (New Zealand) does not have an egg tooth in the avian world and instead uses it's long claws to break through a fairly thin egg shell. In my picture of a Wood Duck chick captured at Mud Lake a couple of days ago, you can clearly see the orange egg tooth still intact.