The other day I saw a marabou bird in a wildlife documentary and was surprised by the hair-like stuff on its gular sack (the pink bag hanging from its neck). Wikipedia doesn't mention it and if you search for "marabou feathers" you only find that the world apparently obsesses about the fuzzy white crest on its neck that inspired fashion some decades ago. "Marabou hair" and "marabou hair feathers" likewise only yield information about fashion accessories. Even if you explicitly include "gular sack" Google unhelpfully tries to lead you towards information about the crest feathers.
This is definitely a case where even if you think you know all the relevant words you're unable to phrase a search query in a way that convinces Google you're not interested in the generic results everybody else is likely looking for.
And this isn't even a case that matters much. I was just trying to find out whether those feathers are actually a different type or just look more hair-like for some reason. It reminded me of a video I once saw about primitive proto-feathers we now know some dinosaurs had (affectionally called "dino fuzz").
In case you didn't find the answer to your question, those feathers are called 'filoplumes' [1]. Relatively obscure anatomical detail like this is more easily discoverable in the scientific literature than on the web. I found the answer by searching Google Scholar for "marabou stork", browsing the results for a paper about the "gular sac" (although it has other names), then reading the most promising looking paper - the answer was in the second paragraph [2].
2. Akester, A. R., Pomeroy, D. E. and Purton, M. D. (1973), Subcutaneous air pouches in the Marabou stork (Leptoptios curmeniferus). Journal of Zoology, 170: 493–499. doi:10.1111/j.1469-7998.1973.tb05063.x https://sci-hub.io/http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.111...
Ah, interesting. Odd that even the article only describes them as "filoplume-like" not simply filoplumes. But based on what I find when I search for "filoplumes" it seems their function and evolutionary origin isn't entirely clear.
The other day I saw a marabou bird in a wildlife documentary and was surprised by the hair-like stuff on its gular sack (the pink bag hanging from its neck). Wikipedia doesn't mention it and if you search for "marabou feathers" you only find that the world apparently obsesses about the fuzzy white crest on its neck that inspired fashion some decades ago. "Marabou hair" and "marabou hair feathers" likewise only yield information about fashion accessories. Even if you explicitly include "gular sack" Google unhelpfully tries to lead you towards information about the crest feathers.
This is definitely a case where even if you think you know all the relevant words you're unable to phrase a search query in a way that convinces Google you're not interested in the generic results everybody else is likely looking for.
And this isn't even a case that matters much. I was just trying to find out whether those feathers are actually a different type or just look more hair-like for some reason. It reminded me of a video I once saw about primitive proto-feathers we now know some dinosaurs had (affectionally called "dino fuzz").