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Passeriform
A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped'), which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes (three pointing forward and one back), which facilitates perching. With more than 140 families and some 6,500 identified species, Passeriformes is the largest clade of birds and among the most diverse clades of terrestrial vertebrates, representing 60% of birds.Ericson, P.G.P. et al. (2003Evolution, biogeography, and patterns of diversification in passerine birds ''J. Avian Biol'', 34:3–15.Selvatti, A.P. et al. (2015"A Paleogene origin for crown passerines and the diversification of the Oscines in the New World" ''Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution'', 88:1–15. Passerines are divided into three clades: Acanthisitti (New Zealand wrens), Tyranni (suboscines), and Passeri (oscines or songbirds). The passerine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blue Jay
The blue jay (''Cyanocitta cristata'') is a passerine bird in the family Corvidae, native to eastern North America. It lives in most of the eastern and central United States; some eastern populations may be migratory. Resident populations are also in Newfoundland, Canada; breeding populations are found across southern Canada. It breeds in both deciduous and coniferous forests, and is common in residential areas. Its coloration is predominantly blue, with a white chest and underparts, and a blue crest; it has a black, U-shaped collar around its neck and a black border behind the crest. Males and females are similar in size and plumage, and plumage does not vary throughout the year. Four subspecies have been recognized. The blue jay feeds mainly on seeds and nuts, such as acorns, which it may hide to eat later; soft fruits; arthropods; and occasionally small vertebrates. It typically gleans food from trees, shrubs, and the ground, and sometimes hawks insects from the air. Blue ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the ostrich. There are about ten thousand living species, more than half of which are passerine, or "perching" birds. Birds have whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Songbird
A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 or so speciesEdwards, Scott V. and John Harshman. 2013. Passeriformes. Perching Birds, Passerine Birds. Version 06 February 2013 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Passeriformes/15868/2013.02.06 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/ ccessed 2017/12/11 found all over the world, in which the vocal organ typically is developed in such a way as to produce a diverse and elaborate bird song. Songbirds form one of the two major lineages of extant perching birds (~4000 species), the other being the Tyranni (~1000 species), which are most diverse in the Neotropics and absent from many parts of the world. The Tyranni have a simpler syrinx musculature, and while their vocalizations are often just as complex and striking as thos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Passeri
A songbird is a bird belonging to the suborder Passeri of the perching birds (Passerine, Passeriformes). Another name that is sometimes seen as the scientific or vernacular name is Oscines, from Latin ''oscen'', "songbird". The Passeriformes contains 5000 or so speciesEdwards, Scott V. and John Harshman. 2013. Passeriformes. Perching Birds, Passerine Birds. Version 06 February 2013 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Passeriformes/15868/2013.02.06 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/[Accessed 2017/12/11]. found all over the world, in which the Syrinx (bird anatomy), vocal organ typically is developed in such a way as to produce a diverse and elaborate bird song. Songbirds form one of the two major lineages of extant perching birds (~4000 species), the other being the Tyranni (~1000 species), which are most diverse in the Neotropics and absent from many parts of the world. The Tyranni have a simpler Syrinx (bird anatomy), syrinx musculature, and while their voc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eocene
The Eocene ( ) Epoch is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (mya). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes from the Ancient Greek (''ēṓs'', "dawn") and (''kainós'', "new") and refers to the "dawn" of modern ('new') fauna that appeared during the epoch. The Eocene spans the time from the end of the Paleocene Epoch to the beginning of the Oligocene Epoch. The start of the Eocene is marked by a brief period in which the concentration of the carbon isotope Carbon-13, 13C in the atmosphere was exceptionally low in comparison with the more common isotope Carbon-12, 12C. The end is set at a major extinction event called the ''Grande Coupure'' (the "Great Break" in continuity) or the Eocene–Oligocene extinction event, which may be related to the impact of one or more large bolides in Popigai impact structure, Siberia and in what is now ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brood Parasite
Brood parasites are animals that rely on others to raise their young. The strategy appears among birds, insects and fish. The brood parasite manipulates a host, either of the same or of another species, to raise its young as if it were its own, usually using egg mimicry, with eggs that resemble the host's. The evolutionary strategy relieves the parasitic parents from the investment of rearing young. This benefit comes at the cost of provoking an evolutionary arms race between parasite and host as they coevolve: many hosts have developed strong defenses against brood parasitism, such as recognizing and ejecting parasitic eggs, or abandoning parasitized nests and starting over. It is less obvious why most hosts do care for parasite nestlings, given that for example cuckoo chicks differ markedly from host chicks in size and appearance. One explanation, the mafia hypothesis, proposes that parasitic adults retaliate by destroying host nests where rejection has occurred; there is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vertebrate
Vertebrates () comprise all animal taxa within the subphylum Vertebrata () ( chordates with backbones), including all mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish. Vertebrates represent the overwhelming majority of the phylum Chordata, with currently about 69,963 species described. Vertebrates comprise such groups as the following: * jawless fish, which include hagfish and lampreys * jawed vertebrates, which include: ** cartilaginous fish (sharks, rays, and ratfish) ** bony vertebrates, which include: *** ray-fins (the majority of living bony fish) *** lobe-fins, which include: **** coelacanths and lungfish **** tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) Extant vertebrates range in size from the frog species ''Paedophryne amauensis'', at as little as , to the blue whale, at up to . Vertebrates make up less than five percent of all described animal species; the rest are invertebrates, which lack vertebral columns. The vertebrates traditionally include the hagfish, which do no ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Acanthisitti
The New Zealand wrens are a family (Acanthisittidae) of tiny passerines endemic to New Zealand. They were represented by seven Holocene species in four or five genera, although only two species in two genera survive today. They are understood to form a distinct lineage within the passerines, but authorities differ on their assignment to the oscines or suboscines (the two suborders that between them make up the Passeriformes). More recent studies suggest that they form a third, most ancient, suborder Acanthisitti and have no living close relatives at all. They are called "wrens" due to similarities in appearance and behaviour to the true wrens (Troglodytidae) but are not members of that family. New Zealand wrens are mostly insectivorous foragers of New Zealand's forests, with one species, the New Zealand rock wren, being restricted to alpine areas. Both the remaining species are poor fliers and four of the five extinct species are known or suspected to have been flightless. Along ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cuckoo-finch
The cuckoo-finch (''Anomalospiza imberbis''), also known as the parasitic weaver or cuckoo weaver, is a small passerine bird now placed in the family Viduidae with the indigobirds and whydahs. It occurs in grassland in Africa south of the Sahara. The male is mainly yellow and green while the female is buff with dark streaks. The eggs are laid in the nests of other birds. Taxonomy The species was described in 1868 by the German ornithologist Jean Cabanis based on a specimen from East Africa, probably from the coast opposite Zanzibar. It was initially placed in the genus ''Crithagra'' but later moved to a genus of its own, ''Anomalospiza''. The name of the genus means "anomalous finch" with ''spiza'' being a Greek word for finch. The specific name ''imberbis'' comes from Latin and means "beardless". Its closest relatives are thought to be the indigobirds and whydahs of the genus ''Vidua''. These birds are now usually considered to form a family, Viduidae. Previously they were treat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Viduidae
__NOTOC__ The indigobirds and whydahs, together with the cuckoo-finch, make up the family Viduidae; they are small passerine birds native to Africa. These are finch-like species which usually have black or indigo predominating in their plumage. The birds named "whydahs"The yellow-mantled widowbird was the type species of its genus, and was originally named from the city of Ouidah in Benin. Nowadays the name whydah (i.e. Ouidah) is however applied to the long-tailed species of the Viduidae. have long or very long tails in the breeding male. All are obligate brood parasites, which lay their eggs in the nests of estrildid finch species; most indigobirds use firefinches as hosts, whereas the paradise whydahs chose pytilias. Unlike the cuckoos and honeyguides, the indigobirds and whydahs do not destroy the host's eggs. Typically, they lay 2–4 eggs in with those already present. The eggs of both the host and the victim are white, although the indigobird's are slightly larger. Ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dactyly
In biology, dactyly is the arrangement of digits (fingers and toes) on the hands, feet, or sometimes wings of a tetrapod animal. It comes from the Greek word δακτυλος (''dáktylos'') = "finger". Sometimes the ending "-dactylia" is used. The derived adjectives end with "-dactyl" or "-dactylous". As a normal feature Pentadactyly Pentadactyly (from Greek "five") is the condition of having five digits on each limb. It is traditionally believed that all living tetrapods are descended from an ancestor with a pentadactyl limb, although many species have now lost or transformed some or all of their digits by the process of evolution. However, this viewpoint was challenged by Stephen Jay Gould in his 1991 essay "Eight (Or Fewer) Little Piggies", where he pointed out polydactyly in early tetrapods and described the specializations of digit reduction. Despite the individual variations listed below, the relationship is to the original five-digit model. In reptiles, the limbs ar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cowbird
Cowbirds are birds belonging to the genus ''Molothrus'' in the family Icteridae. They are of New World origin, and are obligate brood parasites, laying their eggs in the nests of other species. The genus was introduced by English naturalist William John Swainson in 1832 with the brown-headed cowbird (''Molothrus ater'') as the type species. The genus name combines the Ancient Greek , meaning "struggle" or "battle", with , meaning "to sire" or "to impregnate". Species The genus contains six species: One extinct species, the Talara cowbird (''Molothrus resinosus''), is known from fossil remains recovered from the Talara Tar Seeps of northwestern Peru, and likely went extinct during the late Quaternary. It may have been a close associate of Pleistocene megafauna communities, and may have gone extinct following their collapse in populations. The nonparasitic baywings were formerly placed in this genus; they are now classified as ''Agelaioides''. Behavior Cowbirds are insectivo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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