Canary with five toes

Birds have maximum four toes, but bird feet can have different patterns. Most common are: Anisodactyly: three toes forward and one back and zygodactyly: two toes forward and two back
Of course there are exceptions. One example is the ostrich. The ostrich has just two toes on each foot (didactyly) and the emu (Dromaius novaehollandiae) has three toes on each foot (tridactyl).
Canaries have four toes, three toes forward and one back, but mother nature is sometimes unpredictable.
A Belgian canary enthusiast, Marc Lanckzweirt, bred a canary with FIVE toes.

One comment

  1. There are also several chicken breeds that often have 5 toes – a result of inbreeding maybe?

Comments are closed.