Avian Wingspan Database for 10,618 Flighted Bird Species

A dataset of empirical and predicted wingspan measurements for 10,618 flighted bird species, representing approximately 97% of all extant species. It was created by Michael Fox and accompanies a 2026 manuscript on estimating wingspan from wing length. The data combines empirical measurements for 1,442 species from three ornithological sources with predictions generated from order-level regression models.

Use Cases

• Modeling avian flight performance and energetics based on wingspan data.
• Conducting comparative phylogenetic analyses of morphological traits across bird orders.
• Validating and improving predictive models for species trait imputation.
• Studying macroecological patterns in bird morphology and body size scaling.

Strengths

• Covers 10,618 species, representing approximately 97% of all extant flighted birds.
• Includes empirical data for 1,442 species compiled from three authoritative ornithological sources.
• Predicted values include midpoint, minimum, and maximum estimates derived from order-specific models.
• Full reproducible pipeline code is available in a linked GitHub repository.

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.

Provenance

Source

Compiled from BirdWingData, Handbook of Australian, New Zealand and Antarctic Birds (HANZAB), and Birds of the World, joined to the AVONET morphological database.

Collection Method

Empirical data compilation and order-level linear regression modeling to predict wingspan from wing length.

Time Range

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Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-24 07:21:31; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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