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muffintonic · 2 years

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Rito “Hair”

Wood duck

Teba. I rest my case.

...Just kidding! Anyway, this post kind of got away from me, so here’s a table of contents.

I. What IS a feather? II. An argument for Rito feathers III. Hypothetical grooming habits IV. Revali’s braids TLDR

I. What IS a feather?

To begin: the Rito are covered with feathers, we’re all aware of that.

Now, the real question is what KIND of feathers do they have on their heads and whether they need to preen/comb them in general.

Here are the types of feathers that real life birds have:

Wing feathers/remiges are asymmetrical, less flexible, and located on the wings for flight.

Tail feathers/retrices are similar to reminges but have more of a fan shape for steering and are located at the tail.

Contour feathers cover birds' bodies and have waterproof tips and fluffy bases. These also include flight feathers (remiges/retrices)--coverts are contour feathers that cover the bases of flight feathers.

Semiplumes are mostly hidden beneath other feathers and have a loose, insulating structure.

Down feathers are the innermost layer of feathers and trap body heat with their fluffiness.

Filoplumes are sensory receptors (like whiskers) that inform wind, air pressure, and feather movements and are usually hidden beneath contour feathers.

Bristles are like eyelashes and are located around the beak.

Feather structures themselves are either pennaceous (stiff and flat with microscopic hooks on the barbules that interlock and proof against wind and water) or plumulaceous (flexible barbs with long barbules that trap air).

The calamus extends into the central rachis, the rachis has barbs branching out from it, and the barbules have hooks that interlock them with other barbules (the flat surface created by the interlocked barbules is called a vane).

Basically: calamus = roots, rachis = trunk, barbs = branches, and barbules = leaves.

How do the barbules stay hooked to each other, you may ask? The answer to that is preening!

Whenever the barbules become separated, birds draw the feather through their beaks to rezip the hooks that keep them together. This process also serves to realign feathers to keep them aerodynamic/in proper tracts for insulation and remove keratin sheaths from newly grown feathers (AKA pin feathers). For the places they can’t reach with their beaks, such as their heads/necks, birds will run their talons through their feathers. There’s also social grooming called allopreening where birds--usually mated pairs--will help each other complete this process in the hard-to-reach places (typically restricted to the head/neck areas unless between mates).

Preening additionally removes dust/dirt and parasites while distributing preen oil. Most birds (a rare few have pulviplumes/powder down instead) have this hidden exocrine nipple-ish thing located at the base of their tail feathers called a uropygial/preen gland that produces preen oil. Preen oil is a whiteish, waxy/oily secretion (with every bird’s oil having a distinct smell--yes, birds can smell they have olfactory epithelium lining their caudal nasal concha and that’s one way they find mates/the oil is used for social communication) that birds use to waterproof their feathers, protect against bacteria, keep them flexible, and reduce feather degradation. Birds also spread this oil on their legs and feet to be transferred to the hard-to-reach places during scratching. Yes, I think Rito have the Oil Nipple (they already have the nictitating membrane underneath their eyelids, so why not).

Birds typically have molt seasons where the feathers that have experienced enough wear and tear that preening isn’t enough to maintain their structure are shed. Molts start with the innermost primary feathers/central tail feathers and move outwards. Bigger birds tend to have partial molts wherein they stagger the regrowth of individual primary and secondary feathers on the wings over the course of multiple years. Regarding molting, I interpreted the Creating a Champion blurb to mean that Rito chicks fully molt every season and the adults only regrow feathers they lose/pull out (kind of like how people regrow hairs that fall out). I guess Rito feathers are a bit more durable than normal bird ones? (Hopefully that means less time spent preening as well--normal birds spend around a few hours each day preening since it involves going through individual feathers.)

*whispers* Also, when feathers first form, they have arteries running through them--these are known as blood feathers. Eventually, as they grow, the blood supply recedes to the shaft's base and they become regular feathers once unfurled from the sheath. Oh, and since filoplumes are under contour feathers, that means Rito CAN feel things with their wings! (At the very least, i’d imagine they could feel if they were touching something because of the pressure sensitivity aspect.)

II. An argument for Rito feathers

In terms of what the Rito have on their heads, there SEEM to be two feather variations:

1) Feathers that have a defined shape and are the same color as the rest of their main plumage color.

2) Whatever these finer ones are (located around the back and near their ear holes) that are a different color from their other head feathers.

What can those finer feathers be, though? The answer was right there all along:

they’re still part of the same feathers. These feathers are undoubtedly crest feathers, which are semiplumes. Crest feathers are located on the head/neck/upper back, so this is kind of obvious in hindsight. Since semiplumes are plumulaceous, they're soft and pliable due to having a thin yet developed central rachis without any hooks on the barbules.

You may be wondering “what’s up with the variation in their feathers, then?” at this point. Specifically for their head feathers, it seems like some Rito have semiplumes that can grow long barbs (like Frita), and some don’t (like Kass and Teba). Some are even able to grow them out in places beyond the standard two zones for Rito (like Kaneli and Harth).

Basically, I imagine barb length to be something like our version of whether some people have straight vs curly hair (or can’t grow their hair past a certain point, I guess).

III. Hypothetical grooming habits

So, if the “hair” is just semiplumes and their barbs, what does that mean for Rito grooming habits?

For the record, I take every pun that any of the Rito characters make to be clues about their physiology because otherwise it wouldn’t make sense for them to be making such specific jokes. Revali says “winging it” and “preen yourself,” so therefore the Rito have wings and preen themselves (and also lay eggs according to Kotts’ “unhatched egg” comment, which seems obvious but also isn’t relevant to this post so I won’t get into it here).

Let’s go back to contour feathers for a moment. Since Rito contour feathers ARE watertight (I figure they also don’t have sweat glands just like birds don’t--imagine getting sweat trapped under feathers/creating bacteria and dripping into down? It just doesn’t work),

it stands to reason that they would need regular maintenance to ensure that the barbules stay properly hooked together to form that seal. AKA, the Rito need to preen like regular birds to keep their feathers healthy.

What would preening look like for the Rito, though?

Since Rito are a mix of Hylian and bird traits, i’m not entirely sure whether they have the additional cervical vertebrae that birds do that would allow for their necks to be highly flexible for tasks like preening. However, the long length of their necks is very noticeable, so I assume that they do. Either way, they nevertheless would be able to reach at least their wing feathers easily by themselves.

*whispers* On the subject of bones, I think the Rito have some but not as many pneumatized bones as birds do. Birds have hollow bones so their air sacs can form pockets inside them--they have a unidirectional respiratory system in which the air sacs keep oxygenated air moving through the lungs. This system causes the sternum to be pushed outward during respiration, which means that restraining the sternum causes a bird to suffocate. The Rito do seem to visibly breathe a bit differently from Hylians and definitely have no problem breathing at high elevations (seen in the landing of Vah Medoh and Revali’s DLC cutscene), but they also don’t seem to have room for posterior air sacs in their torsos and wear fitted armor. Their voluminous chests may indicate anterior air sacs (which would mean some hollow bones), though. Either that or it’s just from the massive pectoral muscles that birds require to fly. How much real life logic can be applied to fictional bird people in a world where magic exists, anyway?

Since their torsos are so long, i’m not sure if they would be able to reach their retrices or, like, the back of their lower leg feathers unless they could contort like birds do when they preen. Similarly, reaching the back of their heads with their feet seems difficult (I can personally at least touch my foot against the side of my head, but then again I neither have stubby Rito legs nor a bendy neck so results may vary). I feel like they must be able to bend enough to reach the places a normal bird would be able to, though, because otherwise why else would they still have feathers in those spots?

Also, we know they can control their tail feathers/at least lift them closer.

If the Rito can’t reach certain areas via beak or talons by themselves and don’t have/want someone else to help them out (or maybe just don’t want to use those methods), I think they would use special grooming tools. As far as re-hooking barbules together without a beak goes, I ripped apart the vane on this (peacock) contour feather and tested to see whether I could rezip the barbules.

I was able to fix the tear by pinching my thumbnail and the flat of my index finger together and dragging up the tear in the direction of the feather’s barbs.

I created another tear to see if this would work with a uniformly flat object (along the lines of a flat iron), and it didn’t work. This may be due to human error, however--if anyone gets different results, please let me know. Note: the vanes of feathers make a sort of velcro noise when manually torn due to the way the barbules hook to each other.

Since contour feathers seem to require a pinching maneuver similar to how beaks work, I imagine the Rito would need a sort of castanet-like implement with a prong to “comb” their feathers.

If the tool worked only for rezipping and not really cleaning, the Rito could do what conservators who manage featherworks (art/artifacts with feathers incorporated into them) do and use paintbrushes to dry clean unreachable feathers.

For the more hair-like barbs on their heads, a comb with wide teeth (and maybe rake-like ends) would probably work for imitating talons/another beak in the case of allopreening. The comb’s teeth would need to be wide since the branching nature of the long barbs and the additional direction of the barbules on each side of the barbs might cause snags otherwise.

*whispers* Speaking of Rito helping each other out: the open roosts, shared kitchen, and way that nobody wants to talk to an outsider like Link before he speaks to the Elder and gets the scoop on/helps with Vah Medoh’s rampage all point to a very collectivistic culture for the Rito (possibly even their feather industry could be run collectively if the feathers are sourced from whatever villagers can spare some feathers). I think this cultural setup lends itself well to allopreening.

In terms of styling their feathers beyond braiding, i’m of the opinion that the Rito don’t really do that since there probably aren’t many styles that would hold their shape without damaging the feathers. I can definitely believe it’s not Maybelline with them considering how birds in real life can naturally grow curly feathers,

straight feathers,

pompadours,

whatever this is,

and anything in between. I don’t think the Rito ever clip their feathers, either.

IV. Revali’s braids

Revali’s braids are definitely the same color as the rest of him and stick out in a rigid way (I think they only turn down a bit at the ends from the weight of his jade bangles), so his semiplumes don’t seem to be able to grow out the barb part--the ends definitely have chunky/defined bits and I imagine they’d look like Teba’s feathers when unbraided.

It seems very weird at first for him to be outright braiding his feathers directly. However, as we’ve established, semiplumes are very pliable due to their thin rachises and loose barbs. I test braided some peacock feathers, and I was able to successfully braid them even with the feathers being tail feathers with thick rachises and therefore stiffer. Notably, it was easier to braid them towards the ends where the rachises were thinner.

I actually think that Revali keeps them in braids specifically because: 1) Braids are an inherent part of Rito culture, and he really loves Rito Village (as evidenced by his DLC dialogue/diary). The only Rito who doesn’t have them is Kass since he can’t seem to grow out his feathers near his ear holes/his crest feathers grow too unevenly for braiding, and I think his little pin thing is supposed to be a substitute for that. 2) The braids/ribbons keep his feathers neat and clean when doing archery training (at least that’s what the Zapotec people use ribbon-braids for). 3) He needs his feathers to be kept neat and clean specifically because it’s hard to maintain them by himself (his habit of wearing scarves may also be to protect his neck feathers). There’s been no mention of his family or friends ever, so I assume he has none--every other champion (including Link) has had mentions of one or the other. No allopreening for Revali, sadly.

TLDR: The “hair” is semiplume feathers, some Rito’s head feathers just have longer barb lengths. The Rito likely need to maintain their feathers like regular birds in general. Revali can’t grow out his barbs, but the pliable nature of his semiplumes make them braidable.

#botw #breath of the wild #rito #revali #teba #rito hair #tloz #the legend of zelda #rito feathers #long post #mine #godDANG was this a labor of love holy halibut #i did find some answers to other questions in the process though so i think it was worth it in the end

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