Birds
Birds are some of the most amazing animals on earth. Most have the ability to fly. Some use ground travel. Some use claws, others use only their beaks. Birds come in many varieties of colors and sizes.
Birds are warm-blooded, egg-laying creatures from the aves class. Along with the obvious feathers and wings, birds have other adaptations for flying such as a wide keel on the sternum, with large wing muscles attached, air spaces and sacs throughout the body and bones, to decrease their weight, and they have various bone fusions and reductions to strengthen and streamline their body.
There are more than 8700 species of birds. Their habitats range from icy shores of Antarctica to the hottest parts of the tropics and from mountains, deserts, plains, and facts to open oceans and deeply urbanized areas.
The sizes of birds range from the tiny bee hummingbird, which has a total length of two and a half inches, to the albatross, which has a wing span of eleven and a half feet. The largest bird is a bird that cannot fly, the ostrich. Ostriches can stand almost eight feet high and can weigh near 350 pounds. Other extinct birds have been measured to stand over ten feet high.
The evolution of birds is still being argued. Most people believe that birds evolved from reptiles. Because of birds mainly delicate bones, few fossils have be...
In “A Caged Bird”, it is made clear that this bird has never experienced the freedom of flying with the other species or perching atop the highest building. All it has ever known is the cage in which is has been kept and fed plentifully, yet not punctually, and nurtured with the love of an owner and proper care.
Bald Eagles are the national bird of the United States. They can grow to be 30-43 inches and have a wingspan of 6-8 feet. Their distinct white head and tail allow spectators to determine which type of bird it is from a distance.
Birds follow and clean up after herbivores. And so during their turn in the p...
Dead Birds This movie is about a tribe on the island of Papa New Guinea. They are called the Dani. This tribe lives in the middle of the island. Near their enemy, another near by tribe. They live in little huts made from mud and wood.
scales are like tiny teeth and have the same structure as the shark’s teeth. They are also called dermal denticles. The placoid scales are arranged in a regular patter.
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.
represent in real life. Birds are a part of a class of animals that have the ability to roam
del Hoyo, Josep, Andrew Elliott and Jordi Sargatal. Handbook of the Birds of the World. Vol 1, Ostrich to Ducks. Barcelona: Lynx Edicions, 1992.
A chicken wing does in fact, compare to a human arm in a variety of ways. To begin, a major similarity between the human arm and the chicken wing, is the bone structure. From the research we did in our dissection, and the image on google classroom, the humerus, the radius, and the ulna are the three bones that form the major bone structure of the chicken wing, and the human arm. Furthermore, two specific muscles in the human arm and the chicken wing are shared. The research from our dissection notes helped us notice that these two muscles are the flexor, and the extensor, the flexor is the muscle that makes your arm flex, by pulling in, and the extensor is the muscle that makes your arm stretch out to the full length. Finally, the nerves are
American Crows can reach a length between 17 to 21 inches, with a wingspan of 39 inches, while the Common Raven is a larger bird that has an average length of 24 inches (Burton et al. 2010; Marzluff et al, 2013). Both the American Crow and the Common Raven have black coloration, but their feathers and beaks differ. Common Ravens have a larger, stronger beak, a wedge-shaped tail, and spikey feathers on their throat. American Crows, on the other hand, have a smaller and less bulky bill, smooth throat feathers, and they have tail feathers that fan out instead of forming a wedge (Marzluff et al, 2013). The two birds have different styles of flying.
boat is very similar to the wing of an airplane or even a bird's wing. The
Frogs are needed for everyday life. They are part of pond life. Each animal is important because even in the pond, there is a food chain. Frogs are amphibians, animals that spend half of their lives under water, and remainder on land. The first frog appeared in the early Jurassic period about 200 million years ago.
The idea of winglets was developed by F.W. Lancaster a British aerodynamicist in the late 1800s. However, it was not until an energy crisis in 1976, causing the price of fuel to skyrocket, that Richard Whitcomb, a NASA aerodynamicist, took Lancaster’s concept to the next step. Whitcomb soon published a comparison between a wing with a winglet and the same wing with a simple wing extension to increase its span. This paper showed significant improvement from the simple wing extension to the wing with the winglet. The winglet caused a reduction in drag and an improvement in the lift/drag ratio. Whitcomb proved that in theory the winglet would work, but it was Burt Rutan, an American aerospace engineer that went ahead and designed his ‘Vari-Eze’ to incorporate the ‘Whitcomb Wings’. “Rutan takes winglets from the drawi...
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