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Eocypselus Vincenti
''Eocypselus'' is an genus of prehistoric birds believed to be ancestral to modern hummingbirds and swifts.Mayr, G. (2010)Reappraisal of ''Eocypselus'' – a stem group representative of apodiform birds from the early Eocene of Northern Europe Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, 90: 395-403. Species *''Eocypselus rowei ''Eocypselus rowei'' is an extinct bird believed to be ancestral to modern hummingbirds and swifts. It was a small bird, less than in length, and probably had black feathers. The bird was first described in 2013 and lived approximately 50 mil ...'' Ksepka ''et al.'', 2013 *'' Eocypselus vincenti'' Harrison, 1984 References {{Taxonbar, from=Q21078744 Apodiformes Prehistoric bird genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hummingbird
Hummingbirds are birds native to the Americas and comprise the biological family Trochilidae. With about 361 species and 113 genera, they occur from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, but the vast majority of the species are found in the tropics around the equator. They are small birds, with most species measuring in length. The smallest extant hummingbird species is the bee hummingbird, which weighs less than . The largest hummingbird species is the giant hummingbird, weighing . They are specialized for feeding on flower nectar, but all species also consume flying insects or spiders. Hummingbirds split from their sister group, the swifts and treeswifts, around 42 million years ago. The common ancestor of extant hummingbirds is estimated to have lived 22 million years ago in South America. They are known as hummingbirds because of the humming sound created by their beating wings, which flap at high frequencies audible to humans. They hover in mid-air at rapid wing-flapping rate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Swift (bird)
The swifts are a family, Apodidae, of highly aerial birds. They are superficially similar to swallows, but are not closely related to any passerine species. Swifts are placed in the order Apodiformes with hummingbirds. The treeswifts are closely related to the true swifts, but form a separate family, the Hemiprocnidae. Resemblances between swifts and swallows are due to convergent evolution, reflecting similar life styles based on catching insects in flight. The family name, Apodidae, is derived from the Greek ἄπους (''ápous''), meaning "footless", a reference to the small, weak legs of these most aerial of birds.Jobling (2010) pp. 50–51.Kaufman (2001) p. 329. The tradition of depicting swifts without feet continued into the Middle Ages, as seen in the heraldic martlet. Taxonomy Taxonomists have long classified swifts and treeswifts as relatives of the hummingbirds, a judgment corroborated by the discovery of the Jungornithidae (apparently swift-like hummingbird-relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocypselus Rowei
''Eocypselus rowei'' is an extinct bird believed to be ancestral to modern hummingbirds and swifts. It was a small bird, less than in length, and probably had black feathers. The bird was first described in 2013 and lived approximately 50 million years ago, during the Eocene epoch. Discovery and classification ''Eocypselus rowei'' was first described in 2013 by Daniel T. Ksepka, Julia A. Clarke, Sterling J. Nesbitt, Felicia B. Kulp, and Lance Grande in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The researchers spotted an exceptionally preserved specimen, originally harvested from the Green River Formation of Wyoming, while working at Chicago's Field Museum of Natural History. The specimen includes well preserved feathers and a nearly complete skeleton. It contains fossilized melanosomes, pigmentation cell structures. They named the new species in honor of John Rowe, Chairman of the Field Museum's Board of Trustees. The discoverers chose to honor Ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocypselus Vincenti
''Eocypselus'' is an genus of prehistoric birds believed to be ancestral to modern hummingbirds and swifts.Mayr, G. (2010)Reappraisal of ''Eocypselus'' – a stem group representative of apodiform birds from the early Eocene of Northern Europe Palaeobiodiversity and Palaeoenvironments, 90: 395-403. Species *''Eocypselus rowei ''Eocypselus rowei'' is an extinct bird believed to be ancestral to modern hummingbirds and swifts. It was a small bird, less than in length, and probably had black feathers. The bird was first described in 2013 and lived approximately 50 mil ...'' Ksepka ''et al.'', 2013 *'' Eocypselus vincenti'' Harrison, 1984 References {{Taxonbar, from=Q21078744 Apodiformes Prehistoric bird genera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apodiformes
Traditionally, the bird order Apodiformes contained three living families: the swifts (Apodidae), the treeswifts (Hemiprocnidae), and the hummingbirds (Trochilidae). In the Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy, this order is raised to a superorder Apodimorphae in which hummingbirds are separated as a new order, Trochiliformes. With nearly 450 species identified to date, they are the most diverse order of birds after the passerines. Description As their name ("footless" in Greek) suggests, their legs are small and have limited function aside from perching. The feet are covered with bare skin rather than the scales (scutes) that other birds have. Another shared characteristic is long wings with short, stout humerus bones. The evolution of these wing characteristics has provided the hummingbird with ideal wings for hovering.Mayr, Gerald (2003): Phylogeny of early tertiary swifts and hummingbirds (Aves: Apodiformes). ''Auk'' 120(1): 145–151.PDF fulltext The hummingbirds, swifts, and cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
