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Most intelligent bird species
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Birds are very clever animals. They exhibit a wide range of smart behaviors, including good memories, extensive communication, planning for the future, and remembering the past. Some birds can solve problems, and others are capable of adapting to new environments and conditions. Experts often think of intelligence in terms of creative abilities used to solve problems. Some scientists believe that tool-using birds show such abilities. The woodpecker finch (first from left) of the Galapagos Islands, for example, has learned to use a cactus spine or small twig as a probe to remove carpenter bee larvae from their tunnels. The Egyptian vulture (second from left) uses rocks to break open ostrich eggs. Gulls learn to drop clams and turtles onto roc ...
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18267 |
bio_man |
3 years ago |
Did birds evolve from dinosaurs?
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We often hear people say that modern birds evolved from some dinosaurs. Apart from both being reptiles, what evidence have paleontologist discovered that validates this claim? A small bird-like dinosaur, called the archaeopteryx (left), lived in what is now southern Germany about 150 million years ago. About the size of a crow, it had a shortened tail, long hands, a perching toe slightly turned backward, and wing feathers that were adapted for flight. This creature has long been considered the most ancient bird known. However, despite its birdlike characteristics, its body more closely resembled those of small meat-eating dinosaurs than those of more birdlike dinosaurs. Many paleontologists identify the archaeopteryx as the so-called missing ...
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4115 |
bio_man |
3 years ago |
Quack! Cheep-cheep! Honk!
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Different bird species have distinct calls that they recognize and pay attention to. Play the compilation video below and see if you can recognize any of the bird sounds; these birds are specific to North America. The first six birds have familiar calls, the next six displays birds that are widespread across North America, and the final set has some trickier birds. If you think that you're an expert or know of someone who is, have them play the video blindfolded - you'll be interested to see how they respond!
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12552 |
bio_man |
4 years ago |
Deadbeat birds
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Brood parasites are organisms that rely on others to raise their young. It's the equivalent of having a baby, placing him/her in a basket, and then leaving it on a random person's front porch. While this may seem strange to us, it's not uncommon to some species of birds. One of nature's shrewdest examples of this behavior comes from cowbirds. Not only do they lay their eggs inside the nests of other birds and expect them to rear the foster chicks as their own, scientists have found another way these birds may be harming their hosts -- their extra-thick eggshells can crack the hosts’ own eggs when they falls into the nest. To test this idea, researchers of recent study gathered 157 freshly laid cowbird eggs and dropped them onto host eggs fro ...
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2971 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
Can you spot the camouflaged frogmouth bird?
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The frogmouths are a group of nocturnal birds found from across India and southern Asia to Australia. They are named for their large flattened hooked bills and huge frog-like gape, which they use to take insects. The one's shown above are tawny frogmouths, and they exhibits one of the best examples of cryptic plumage and mimicry, which perch low on tree branches during the day camouflaged as part of the tree. Their silvery-grey plumage patterned with white, black, and brown streaks and spots allows them to freeze into the form of a broken tree branch and become practically invisible in broad daylight. The tawny frogmouth often chooses a broken part of a tree branch and perches upon it with its head thrust upwards at an acute angle using it ...
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1068 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
What color is a toucan's skull?
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Well, obviously it's white, but take a look at its bill! The attractive 7.5-inch-long bill is possessed by both male and female toucans. Interestingly, they use them during a mating ritual, pitching fruit to one another, but has very limited use as an excavation tool. Toucans make their nests in tree hollows found in rain forest regions of Southern Mexico, Central and South America, and the Caribbean region to which they are native. ...
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1126 |
bio_man |
6 years ago |
You won't believe what this viper does to lure hungry birds
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The rare Iranian spider-tailed viper ( Pseudocerastes urarachnoides) waggles a fake "spider" - actually a fleshy lure with leg-like scales at the tip of its tail - to tempt birds within striking distance. Until 2001, the viper was known only from a single misidentified specimen collected during a U.S. expedition to Iran in 1968. The weird structure on its tail was so unlike anything documented in other snakes that it was written off as a birth defect or an abnormal growth. While scientists had suspected its unique tail was used for luring prey, new observations of the dramatic bird captures now confirm this. The new study also revealed the viper starts growing its tail lure after birth, and that it isn’t complete until adulthood.
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2753 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Tiniest of the penguin species
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The little penguin ( Eudyptula minor) is the smallest species of penguin. They grow to an average of 33 cm (13 in) in height and 43 cm (17 in) in length and usually weighs about 1.5 kilogram on average (3.3 pounds). They are mainly found on the coastlines of southern Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, they are often called fairy penguins. In New Zealand, they are more commonly known as little blue penguins or blue penguins owing to their slate-blue plumage. ...
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13634 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
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8777 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Cats don't have beaks!
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Can you spot the cat amongst the pigeons? This is Hungarian artist's - Dudolf - latest optical illusion that has some several viewers puzzled. The cause of all this difficulty is likely to have something to do with the way in which the brain processes visual information, by identifying repeating patterns and then using this to automatically fill in the gaps in peripheral vision. This makes it very difficult to spot minor details or irregularities in our visual field without focusing directly on these elements, which means you probably won't see the cat unless you stare straight at it. ...
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15368 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Watch this incredible bird tap dance to get the female's attention
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The blue-capped cordon-bleu ( Uraeginthus cyanocephalus) has a special talent. Not only can it sing, it can shake a leg or two. For its courtship display, it holds a piece of nesting material in its beak, points its head upward, moves up and down, and sings. Both males and females bob and sing like this, and choose their partner. Now, researchers have found that as the bird bobs, it does a quick tap dance where it stomps its feet. ...
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2884 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
This incredible bird has a horn growing from its head
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Meet the cassowary. These are flightless birds native to the tropical forests of New Guinea and northeastern Australia. There are three extant species. The most common of these, the southern cassowary, is the third tallest and second heaviest living bird, smaller only than the ostrich and emu. All three species have horn-like but soft and spongy crests called casques on their heads, up to 18 cm (7 inches), which serves several purposes. The most interesting being that the wedge-shaped casque may have evolved to protect the head of this animal by deflecting falling fruit, since cassowaries spend a lot of time under trees where seeds the size of golfballs or larger fall from heights of up to 30 metres! ...
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25444 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
One-eyed pigeons are terrible with directions
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When homing pigeons fly home they rely on smells, magnetic fields, and vision to guide their way. But how important visual memory is for pigeons has long remained a mystery. According to a new study, pigeons that learned their way home with a blocked left eye couldn’t repeat the same journey when they wore a patch over their right eye, and vice versa. Instead, they flew slightly off course, following more of a curve than a straight line. Since birds lack a corpus callosum, this suggests that a birds’ lack of this key neural structure greatly affects how pigeons are able to find their way home. Source: http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/282/1816/20151957 ...
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9101 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
Penguins hold the secret to long marriages
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Southern rockhopper penguins ( Eudyptes chrysocome) mate for life, reuniting with the same partner year after year during mating season. But even though they're monogamous, a new study reveals that penguin couples really don’t spend much time together. Using GPS trackers mounted to the penguins’ legs, scientists monitored 16 birds over the course of a mating season. The data show that males arrived at the nesting site approximately 6 days before their female counterparts and stayed about 6 days longer. However, the short mating season means the pairs are only united for about 20 to 30 days a year. And when they were separated, it was usually by a large distance: During the winter months, partners were separated by an average distance of abo ...
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15462 |
duddy |
8 years ago |
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