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Bird

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For other meanings of bird, see bird (disambiguation).

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Birds are bipedal, warm-blooded, egg-laying vertebrates characterized primarily by feathers, forelimbs modified as wings, and hollow bones. There are almost 9000 known species of birds in the world, making them the most diverse class of terrestrial vertebrates.

Introduction

Birds range in size from the tiny hummingbirds to the huge Ostrich and Emu.

Although most birds are characterised by flight, the ratites are flightless, and several other species, particularly on islands, have also lost this ability. Flightless birds include the penguins, Ostrich, kiwi, and the extinct Dodo. Flightless species are vulnerable to extinction when humans or the mammals they introduce arrive in their habitat, for example the Great Auk, flightless rails, and the moa of New Zealand.

Birds are a very differentiated class, with some feeding on nectar, seeds, insects, rodents, fish, carrion, or other birds. Most birds are diurnal, or active during the day. Some birds, such as the owls and nightjars, are nocturnal or crepuscular (active during twilight hours). Many birds migrate long distances to utilise optimum habitats (e.g., Arctic Tern) while others spend almost all their time at sea (e.g. the Wandering Albatross).

Common characteristics of birds are the ability to fly using feathered wings, a bony beak with no teeth, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, high metabolic rate, and a light but strong skeleton. Birds are among the most extensively studied animal groups, with hundreds of academic journals devoted to their study.

To preen or groom their feathers, birds use their bills to brush away foreign particles.

The birds of a region are called the avifauna.

Reproduction

Although most male birds have no external sex organs, the male does have two testes which become hundreds of times larger during the breeding season to produce sperm. The female's ovaries also become larger, although only the left ovary actually functions.

In the males of species without a phallus (see below), sperm is stored within the proctodeum compartment within the cloaca prior to copulation. During copulation, the female moves her tail to the side and the male either mounts the female from behind or moves very close to her. He moves the opening of his cloaca, or vent, close to hers, so that the sperm can enter the female's cloaca, in what is referred to as a cloacal kiss. This can happen very fast, sometimes in less than one second.

The sperm is stored in the female's cloaca for anywhere from a week to a year, depending on the species of bird. Then, one by one, eggs will descend from the female's ovaries and become fertilized by the male's sperm, before being subsequently laid by the female. The eggs will then continue their development in the nest.

Many waterfowl and some other birds, such as the ostrich and turkey, do possess a phallus. Except during copulation, it is hidden within the proctodeum compartment within the cloaca, just inside the vent. The avian phallus differs from the mammalian penis in several ways, most importantly in that it is purely a copulatory organ and is not used for dispelling urine.

After the eggs hatch, parent birds provide varying degrees of care in terms of food and protection. Precocial birds can care for themselves independently within minutes of hatching; altricial hatchlings are helpless, blind, and naked, and require extended parental care. The chicks of many ground-nesting birds such as partridges and waders are often able to run virtually immediately after hatching; such birds are referred to as nidifugous. The young of hole-nesters, on the other hand, are often totally incapable of unassisted survival. "Fledging" is the process of a chick acquiring feathers until it can fly.

Some birds, such as pigeons, geese, and Japanese cranes, remain 'married' for life. The male and female remain together for life or for a long period after mating and may produce offspring on a regular basis.

Respiration

File:Sea Gull 2.jpg
A juvenile Laughing Gull on the beach at Atlantic City

Birds respire by a method of crosscurrent flow, ie: flow at a 90° angle. There are three sections involved in respiration. These are the anterior air sacs (interclavicular, cervicals, and anterior thoracics), the lungs, and the posterior air sacs (posterior thoracics & abdominals). It takes a bird two full breaths (inhaling and exhaling), to cycle air through.

The air flow through air sacs and lungs is as follows:

  • First inhalation: air flows through the trachea and bronchi into the posterior air sacs.
  • First exhalation: air flows from the posterior air sacs to the lungs
  • Second inhalation: air flows from the lungs to the anterior air sacs
  • Second exhalation: air flows from the anterior sacs back through the trachea and out of the body.

In birds, air flows in only one direction. Because of this, birds are able to diffuse more oxygen into their blood. Unlike humans and other mammals, there is no mixing of oxygen rich air and carbon dioxide rich air. Thus, the partial pressure of oxygen in a bird's lungs is the same as the environment. This is also why you would more likely see a bird on Mount Everest, than say a mouse.

Evolution

Birds are generally considered to have evolved from theropod dinosaurs. Specifically, birds are members of Maniraptora, a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurs and oviraptorids. The exact boundary between dinosaurs and birds is unclear, especially with the recent discoveries in North-east China (Liaoning Province) demonstrating that many small theropod dinosaurs had feathers.

The recently discovered dromaeosaur, Cryptovolans, was capable of powered flight, contained a keel and had ribs with an uncinate process. In fact, Cryptovolans makes a better "bird" than Archaeopteryx who is missing some of these modern bird features. Because of this, some paleontologists have suggested that dromaeosaurs are actually basal birds whose larger members are secondarily flightless. Evidence for this theory is currently inconclusive.

It should be noted that although ornithischian (bird-hipped) dinosaurs share the same hip structure as birds, birds actually originated from the saurischian (lizard-hipped) dinosaurs, and thus arrived at their hip structure condition independently. In fact, the bird-like hip structure developed a third time among a peculiar group of theropods, the Therizinosauridae.

The early bird Archaeopteryx, from the Jurassic, is well-known as one of the first "missing links" to be found in support of evolution in the late 19th century. It remains the most primitive known bird. Other early birds now extinct include the Confuciusornithidae, Enantiornithes, Ichthyornis, and Hesperornithiformes, a group of flightless divers resembling grebes.

Modern birds are classified in Neornithes. The flightless Palaeognaths, the Ostrich group, were first to diverge from the avian lineage, and it is now thought that the basal divergence from the remaining Neognathes was that of the Galloanseri, the superorder containing the Anseriformes (ducks, geese and swans), and the Galliformes (the pheasants, grouse and their allies). See the chart.

Sibley & Ahlquist's Phylogeny and Classification of Birds (1990) is a landmark work on the classification of birds (although frequently debated and constantly revised).

Bird orders

This is a list of the taxonomic orders in the class Aves. List of birds gives a more detailed summary, including families.

Birds and humans

Birds are an important food source for humans. The most commonly eaten species is the domestic chicken and its eggs, although geese, pheasants, turkeys and ducks are also widely eaten. Other birds that have been utilized for food include emus, ostriches, pigeons, grouse, quails, doves, woodcocks, songbirds and others, including small passerines such as finches..

At one time swans and flamingos were delicacies of the rich and powerful, although these are generally protected now.

Many species have become extinct through over-hunting, such as the Passenger Pigeon, and many others have become endangered or extinct through habitat destruction, deforestation and intensive agriculture being common causes for declines.

Chinstrap Penguin

Numerous species have come to depend on human activies for food and are widespread to the point of being pests. For example the common pigeon or Rock Dove (Columba livia) thrives in urban areas around the world. In North America, introduced House Sparrows (Passer domesticus), Common Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), and House Finches (Carpodacus mexicanus) are similarly widespread.

Other birds have been used by humans: for example Homing pigeons to carry messages (many are still kept for sport), falcons for hunting, cormorants for fishing. Chickens and pigeons are popular subjects in experimental research in biology and comparative psychology. As birds are extra-sensitive to toxins, the Canary was often used in coal mines to indicate the presence of poisonous gases, so that the miners could escape.

Colorful, particularly tropical, birds (e.g., parrots, and mynahs) are often kept as pets although this has led to smuggling of some endangered species; CITES does considerable work to deter this.

Bird diseases that can be contracted by humans include: psittacosis, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, Newcastle's disease, mycobacteriosis (avian tuberculosis), influenza, giardiasis, and cryptosporiadiosis.

Few birds use chemical defences against predators. Tubenoses can eject an unpleasant slime against an aggressor, and some species of pitohui, found in New Guinea secrete a powerful neurotoxin in their feathers.

See also

Bird families and taxonomic discussion are given in list of birds and Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy.

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