The concept of flight is typically thought to be synonymous with birds, so much so that it would be a surprise to most people to learn that there are currently about 11 known families of extant birds that do not have the ability to fly (McCall). Of these 11 families, there are about 98 species that are either still living or have gone extinct in the past few decades (McCall). Another surprising fact regarding flightless birds is that flightlessness as a trait did not appear suddenly among any flying vertebrates; they all took millions of years to fly (Paul). All flightless birds belong to the class Aves, which itself belongs to the phylum Chordata and the kingdom Animalia (Flightless Birds). Within the class Aves there is a superorder known as Palaeognathae, which includes most flightless birds (University of California Museum of Paleontology). Examples of well-known Paleognathe birds include ostriches and kiwis (University of California Museum of Paleontology). This group is further divided into two groups, the tinamiformes and the ratites (University of California Museum of Paleontology). Flightless birds that are not found in superorder Palaeognathae are classified as Neognathae, another superorder which includes penguins, puffins and rails (University of California Museum of Paleontology). In literature all of these birds are often referred to as flightless, terrestrial species or aquatic species. It is generally accepted that although these bird species do not fly now, they did all came from an ancestor that did fly at some point (The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Foundation). It is also worth noting that flightlessness can be observed on a short time scale, as a rapid evolution rather than one taking thousands... ... middle of paper ... ...27. Web. Lloyd, Robin. Theory of Flightless Birds Shot Down. 8 September 2008. Web. 1 March 2014. McCall, Robert A., Sean Nee and Paul H. Harvey. "The role of wing length in the evolution." Evolutionary Ecology (1998): 569-580. Web. McNab, Brian K. "Energy Conservation and the Evolution of Flightlessness in Birds." The American Naturalist (1994): 628-642. Web. Paul, Gregory S. Dinosaurs of the air: the evolution and loss of flight in dinosaurs and birds. Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press, 2002. Print. Roff, Derek A. "The evolution of flightlessness: is history important?" Evolutionary Ecology (1994): 693-657. Web. The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Foundation. Birds Gotta Fly...Or Do They? 1 June 2008. Web. 27 February 2014. University of California Museum of Paleontology. Introduction to the Palaeognathae. 20 August 1995. Web. 1 March 2014.
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8. Taylor, Dan. 1998. Audubon Society Inspired to Action by Bird Die -offs . 17 Jan. 1998 . E-mail . Available bkus@sunstroke.sdsu.edu
Two key scientists in “de-extinction”, Stewart Brand and George Church, hosted a symposium at Harvard Medical School called “Bringing Back the Passenger Pigeon” in February 2012. At this symposium, Church demonstrated his...
Fossil evidence suggests that the Cathartid (New World) vultures have been around for quite some time with two fossil species dated from the early Oligocene (about 35 million years ago). During the Pliocene and Pleistocene (about 2 million years ago) th...
Several models have been proposed to explain why might Archaeopteryx or its decedents develop the ability to fly. The “pouncing proavis” or “trees-down” model was proposed by J.P. Garner and colleagues in 1999. They theorize that birds evolved to the ability to fly by first living in trees and then gliding down to ambush prey. Natural selection favoured individuals that could glide the furthest to catch prey and eventually led to the origin of flight. Garner and colleagues (1999) believed that this theory explained three aspects of early flight: the model matches observed secession in flight evolution based on fossil records, it predicts a primitive bird-like animal had few adaptions to flapping but very complex aerodynamic feathers, and it explains the origin of rachis in feathers.
Work Cited Colby, Chris. A. Web. " An Introduction to Evolutionary Biology." 28 August 2015.
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The results of natural selection in Darwin 's finches and British Columbian sparrows change my view of species because every living animal changes to survive conditions that get in the way of normal life.
The idea of sapient theropod dinosaurs, often nicknamed “dinosauroids”, has captured the imagination since the idea was first utilized by Aritsune Toyota’s 1977 novel A Shadow of the Past (Kaneko, 1997) and later popularized by Sagan (1977). In recent years, the focus of this concept has shifted away from the anachronistically anthropomorphic lizard-men of speculations past, and toward more feasible hypotheses consistent with the avian nature of Mesozoic theropods, particularly maniraptorian coelurosaurs. Consequently, the prospect of finding fossil evidence of dinosauroids should be based on current knowledge of theropod paleobiology, with respect to observational evidence of social and technological intelligence of modern birds. The ultimate
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Dudley, Robert. "The Evolutionary Physiology of Animal Flight: Paleobiological and Present Perspectives". Annual Review of Physiology. 2000. 63:135-55. 27 Aug 2007 http://arjournals.annualreviews.org
*The speed of migration is different for different species, depending on when they migrate. *A new study has found interesting differences in the migration speeds of early and late migrants between Europe and Africa. *In general, flight velocity of birds ranges from 20 to 50 miles per hour. *For sustained flight, larger birds typically fly faster than smaller birds. * A common flying speed of ducks and geese is between 40 and 50 miles per hour, but among the smaller birds it is much less. *Herons, hawks, Horned Larks, ravens, and shrikes, timed with an automobile speedometer have been found to fly 22 to 28 miles per hour, whereas some of the flycatchers fly at only 10 to 17 miles per hour. *Even such fast-flying birds as the Mourning Dove