Your question on biots prompted me to look at some old e-mail I received from another
flyfishing list. I hope some of this info helps.
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Yes, I am the "bird man". Your question about what to call the
part of the feather opposite the biot side prompted me to go look at a
biot. I do not flytie so I read with some curiosity the terms you folks
use. Biot is not a term found in ornithology and I hear it often
used. The feather has a central shaft with the largest part being called
the rachis and the lower, usually naked, part called the calamus. Off the
rachis are two vanes. In those flight feathers that emerge from the
"hand" of the bird (i.e., primary feathers), the vanes are
asymmetrical. The anterior vane is narrow and stiff whereas the posterior
vane is larger and more flexible. The vanes are composed of hundreds of
barbs which project out from the rachis. Each barb is like a miniature
feather with a shaft called the rachilla and two venules coming off it
formed of barbules. (Sounds like a fractal?). In the biot, i.e. a barb
from the anterior vane of a primary, the rachilla is enlarged (hence the
stiffness of that vane). There is no name for the barbs on the posterior
vane that I am aware of. The biot is a term unique to flytying(could not
find it either in a dictionary or in a book of root words in
science). Like the term "herl" I suppose.
I did find a pretty good description of feather structure at
<http://globalflyfisher.com/staff/luallen/feather.htm> although I had to
look hard to find the term "vane" used.
Alan Di Somma
phxflytyer
Phoenix,Az.
http://members.home.net/azflycasters/index.html
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