39-491: Neopelma is a genus of bird in the family Pipridae . Neopelma : Greek : νεος neos "new, different"; πελμα pelma , πελματος pelmatos "sole of the foot". It contains the following species: This Pipridae -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves ( Latin: [ˈaveːs] ), characterised by feathers , toothless beaked jaws,
78-704: A better sense of smell. A third stage of bird evolution starting with Ornithothoraces (the "bird-chested" avialans) can be associated with the refining of aerodynamics and flight capabilities, and the loss or co-ossification of several skeletal features. Particularly significant are the development of an enlarged, keeled sternum and the alula , and the loss of grasping hands. † Anchiornis † Archaeopteryx † Xiaotingia † Rahonavis † Jeholornis † Jixiangornis † Balaur † Zhongjianornis † Sapeornis † Confuciusornithiformes † Protopteryx † Pengornis Ornithothoraces † Enantiornithes Avian incubation Egg incubation
117-463: A chicken egg, which spends about one day in tract and 21 days externally). After laying her eggs, the female curls around them. The incubation period is divided into three phases. In the first phase, the embryo has no functional organs and relies on the yolk sac for sustenance. The yolk is absorbed by the developing young. During the second phase, the digits develop. In the last phase, the egg tooth appears. Methods of incubation vary widely among
156-428: A day. Megapode eggs take from 49 to 90 days depending on the mound and ambient temperature. Even in other birds, ambient temperatures can lead to variation in incubation period. Normally the egg is incubated outside the body. However, in one recorded case, the egg incubation occurred entirely within a chicken. The chick hatched inside and emerged from its mother without the shell, leading to internal wounds that killed
195-473: A definition similar to "all theropods closer to birds than to Deinonychus ", with Troodon being sometimes added as a second external specifier in case it is closer to birds than to Deinonychus . Avialae is also occasionally defined as an apomorphy-based clade (that is, one based on physical characteristics). Jacques Gauthier , who named Avialae in 1986, re-defined it in 2001 as all dinosaurs that possessed feathered wings used in flapping flight , and
234-482: A giant compost heap, while crab plovers make partial use of heat from the sun. The Namaqua sandgrouse of the deserts of southern Africa , needing to keep its eggs cool during the heat of the day, stands over them drooping its wings to shade them. The humidity is also critical, because if the air is too dry the egg will lose too much water to the atmosphere, which can make hatching difficult or impossible. As incubation proceeds, an egg will normally become lighter, and
273-442: A group called Paraves . Some basal members of Deinonychosauria, such as Microraptor , have features which may have enabled them to glide or fly. The most basal deinonychosaurs were very small. This evidence raises the possibility that the ancestor of all paravians may have been arboreal , have been able to glide, or both. Unlike Archaeopteryx and the non-avialan feathered dinosaurs, who primarily ate meat, studies suggest that
312-406: A sister group, the order Crocodilia , contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria . During the late 1990s, Aves was most commonly defined phylogenetically as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and Archaeopteryx lithographica . However, an earlier definition proposed by Jacques Gauthier gained wide currency in the 21st century, and
351-717: A time, sometimes for years, and rarely for life. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous (one male with many females) or, rarely, polyandrous (one female with many males). Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction . They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Many species of birds are economically important as food for human consumption and raw material in manufacturing, with domesticated and undomesticated birds being important sources of eggs, meat, and feathers. Songbirds , parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano (bird excrement)
390-486: Is also called broodiness , and most egg -laying breeds of poultry have had this behavior selectively bred out of them to increase production. A wide range of incubation habits is displayed among birds. In warm-blooded species such as bird species generally, body heat from the brooding patch of the brooding parent provides the constant temperature. Several groups, notably the megapodes , instead use heat generated from rotting vegetable material, effectively creating
429-540: Is called ornithology . Birds are feathered theropod dinosaurs and constitute the only known living dinosaurs . Likewise, birds are considered reptiles in the modern cladistic sense of the term, and their closest living relatives are the crocodilians . Birds are descendants of the primitive avialans (whose members include Archaeopteryx ) which first appeared during the Late Jurassic . According to recent estimates, modern birds ( Neornithes ) evolved in
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#1732780977179468-429: Is harvested for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure throughout human culture. About 120 to 130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry. The first classification of birds
507-406: Is necessary, but the actual temperature determines the sex ratio of the offspring . In birds in contrast, the sex of offspring is genetically determined, but in many species a constant and particular temperature is necessary for successful incubation. Especially in poultry , the act of sitting on eggs to incubate them is called brooding. The action or behavioral tendency to sit on a clutch of eggs
546-503: Is not considered a direct ancestor of birds, though it is possibly closely related to the true ancestor. Over 40% of key traits found in modern birds evolved during the 60 million year transition from the earliest bird-line archosaurs to the first maniraptoromorphs , i.e. the first dinosaurs closer to living birds than to Tyrannosaurus rex . The loss of osteoderms otherwise common in archosaurs and acquisition of primitive feathers might have occurred early during this phase. After
585-516: Is synonymous to Avifilopluma. † Scansoriopterygidae † Eosinopteryx † Jinfengopteryx † Aurornis † Dromaeosauridae † Troodontidae Avialae Based on fossil and biological evidence, most scientists accept that birds are a specialised subgroup of theropod dinosaurs and, more specifically, members of Maniraptora , a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurids and oviraptorosaurs , among others. As scientists have discovered more theropods closely related to birds,
624-422: Is the process by which an egg , of oviparous (egg-laying) animals, develops an embryo within the egg, after the egg's formation and ovipositional release. Egg incubation is done under favorable environmental conditions, possibly by brooding and hatching the egg. Multiple and various factors are vital to the incubation of various species of animal. In many species of reptile for example, no fixed temperature
663-535: Is used by many scientists including adherents to the PhyloCode . Gauthier defined Aves to include only the crown group of the set of modern birds. This was done by excluding most groups known only from fossils , and assigning them, instead, to the broader group Avialae, on the principle that a clade based on extant species should be limited to those extant species and their closest extinct relatives. Gauthier and de Queiroz identified four different definitions for
702-722: The Late Cretaceous and diversified dramatically around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, which killed off the pterosaurs and all non- ornithuran dinosaurs. Many social species preserve knowledge across generations ( culture ). Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and songs , and participating in such behaviour as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking , and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially (but not necessarily sexually) monogamous , usually for one breeding season at
741-669: The Tiaojishan Formation of China, which has been dated to the late Jurassic period ( Oxfordian stage), about 160 million years ago. The avialan species from this time period include Anchiornis huxleyi , Xiaotingia zhengi , and Aurornis xui . The well-known probable early avialan, Archaeopteryx , dates from slightly later Jurassic rocks (about 155 million years old) from Germany . Many of these early avialans shared unusual anatomical features that may be ancestral to modern birds but were later lost during bird evolution. These features include enlarged claws on
780-477: The black-billed and yellow-billed cuckoos ) to 85 days (the wandering albatross and the brown kiwi ). In these latter, the incubation is interrupted; the longest uninterrupted period is 64 to 67 days in the emperor penguin . In general smaller birds tend to hatch faster, but there are exceptions, and cavity nesting birds tend to have longer incubation periods. It can be an energetically demanding process, with adult albatrosses losing as much as 83 g of body weight
819-399: The cassowaries , only the male incubates. The male mountain plover incubates the female's first clutch, but if she lays a second, she incubates it herself. In hoatzins , some birds (mostly males) help their parents incubate later broods. The incubation period, the time from the start of uninterrupted incubation to the emergence of the young, varies from 11 days (some small passerines and
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#1732780977179858-476: 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 5.5 cm (2.2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) common ostrich . There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 orders . More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species;
897-412: The air space within the egg will normally become larger, owing to evaporation from the egg. During incubation, the inner layers of the shell are dissolved by their acidic environment and the calcium carbonate that had been part of the shell is incorporated into the skeleton of the foetus. Experiments with great tits show that females compensate for the potential effects of differential heating by moving
936-428: The appearance of Maniraptoromorpha, the next 40 million years marked a continuous reduction of body size and the accumulation of neotenic (juvenile-like) characteristics. Hypercarnivory became increasingly less common while braincases enlarged and forelimbs became longer. The integument evolved into complex, pennaceous feathers . The oldest known paravian (and probably the earliest avialan) fossils come from
975-509: The birds that descended from them. Despite being currently one of the most widely used, the crown-group definition of Aves has been criticised by some researchers. Lee and Spencer (1997) argued that, contrary to what Gauthier defended, this definition would not increase the stability of the clade and the exact content of Aves will always be uncertain because any defined clade (either crown or not) will have few synapomorphies distinguishing it from its closest relatives. Their alternative definition
1014-665: The earliest members of Aves, is removed from this group, becoming a non-avian dinosaur instead. These proposals have been adopted by many researchers in the field of palaeontology and bird evolution , though the exact definitions applied have been inconsistent. Avialae, initially proposed to replace the traditional fossil content of Aves, is often used synonymously with the vernacular term "bird" by these researchers. † Coelurus † Ornitholestes † Ornithomimosauria † Alvarezsauridae † Oviraptorosauria Paraves Most researchers define Avialae as branch-based clade, though definitions vary. Many authors have used
1053-418: The eggs are inserted. Other neotropical frogs in the family Hemiphractidae also have pouches in which the eggs develop, in some species directly into juvenile frogs and in others into tadpoles that are later deposited in small water bodies to continue their development. The male Darwin's frog carries the eggs around in his mouth until metamorphosis , and the female stomach-brooding frog of Australia swallows
1092-525: The eggs homogeneously within the clutch. In the species that incubate, the work is divided differently between the sexes. Possibly the most common pattern is that the female does all the incubation, as in the Atlantic canary and the Indian robin , or most of it, as is typical of falcons . In some species, such as the whooping crane , the male and the female take turns incubating the egg. In others, such as
1131-451: The first avialans were omnivores . The Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx is well known as one of the first transitional fossils to be found, and it provided support for the theory of evolution in the late 19th century. Archaeopteryx was the first fossil to display both clearly traditional reptilian characteristics—teeth, clawed fingers, and a long, lizard-like tail—as well as wings with flight feathers similar to those of modern birds. It
1170-472: The ground. Fish generally do not incubate their eggs. However, some species mouthbrood their eggs, not eating until they hatch. Some amphibians brood their eggs. The female salamander Ensatina ( Ensatina eschscholtzii ) curls around the clutch of eggs and massages individual eggs with her pulsating throat. Some aquatic frogs such as the Surinam toad ( Pipa pipa ) have pouches in their skin into which
1209-517: The many different kinds of reptiles. Various species of sea turtles bury their eggs on beaches under a layer of sand that provides both protection from predators and a constant temperature for the nest. Snakes may lay eggs in communal burrows, where a large number of adults combine to keep the eggs warm. Some species coil their torsos around the eggs to provide heat for incubation. Alligators and crocodiles either lay their eggs in mounds of decomposing vegetation or lay them in holes they dig in
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1248-424: The mother hen. Embryo development remains suspended until the onset of incubation. The freshly laid eggs of domestic fowl, ostrich, and several other species can be stored for about two weeks when maintained under 5 °C. Extended periods of suspension have been observed in some marine birds. Some species begin incubation with the first egg, causing the young to hatch at different times; others begin after laying
1287-523: 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. The study of birds
1326-402: The outermost half) can be seen in the evolution of maniraptoromorphs, and this process culminated in the appearance of the pygostyle , an ossification of fused tail vertebrae. In the late Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago, the ancestors of all modern birds evolved a more open pelvis, allowing them to lay larger eggs compared to body size. Around 95 million years ago, they evolved
1365-536: The previously clear distinction between non-birds and birds has become blurred. By the 2000s, discoveries in the Liaoning Province of northeast China, which demonstrated many small theropod feathered dinosaurs , contributed to this ambiguity. The consensus view in contemporary palaeontology is that the flying theropods, or avialans , are the closest relatives of the deinonychosaurs , which include dromaeosaurids and troodontids . Together, these form
1404-452: The same biological name "Aves", which is a problem. The authors proposed to reserve the term Aves only for the crown group consisting of the last common ancestor of all living birds and all of its descendants, which corresponds to meaning number 4 below. They assigned other names to the other groups. Lizards & snakes Turtles Crocodiles Birds Under the fourth definition Archaeopteryx , traditionally considered one of
1443-429: The second egg, so that the third chick will be smaller and more vulnerable to food shortages. Some start to incubate after the last egg of the clutch, causing the young to hatch simultaneously. Incubation periods for birds: The only living mammals that lay eggs are echidnas and platypuses . In the latter, the eggs develop in utero for about 28 days, with only about 10 days of external incubation (in contrast to
1482-551: The second toe which may have been held clear of the ground in life, and long feathers or "hind wings" covering the hind limbs and feet, which may have been used in aerial maneuvering. Avialans diversified into a wide variety of forms during the Cretaceous period. Many groups retained primitive characteristics , such as clawed wings and teeth, though the latter were lost independently in a number of avialan groups, including modern birds (Aves). Increasingly stiff tails (especially
1521-466: Was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae . Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use. Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy . Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the clade Theropoda as an infraclass or a subclass, more recently a subclass. Aves and
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