Talk:Bird/Archive 2

message: Do you want to add a link to Bird Research News by ScienceDaily? I like it because the bird research articles are direct from research institutions around the world and updated every few days. There were some really interesting stories on bird migration, saving the Arabian Phoenix from extinction and aquatic origins of birds. But I thought it might be too much of a tangent from the article to discuss these findings right in the article.  Any thoughts? See http://www.sciencedaily.com/news/plants_animals/birds/Michele123 14:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: External Links

message: I suggest that a new article should be created to deal with this broad subject. There is already a bird skeleton article to deal with such a narrow subject, seems pointless to clutter the bird article with so much detail that will enevitably be added. I have ordered the current article to deal with the information as it stands, but it will not do for long. I say split; comments welcome - mastodon 21:00, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split into [[Bird anatomy]] 

message: I notice that the entry reads that there is substantial evidence for the theropod hypothesis of bird origins, but while this is true, there are also continued and coherent criticisms of the theropod hypothesis by various ornithologists and/or paleontologists and it seems that the neutrality and comprehensiveness of the entry necessitates some mention of this.  Or perhaps there should be a separate page to fully treat the issue of bird ancestry? --Calamus 17:14, 15 May 2006 (EDT)
----
:The evolution section does include this: An alternate theory to the dinosaurian origin of birds, espoused by a few scientists (most notably Lary Martin and Alan Feduccia), states that birds (including maniraptoran "dinosaurs") evolved from early archosaurs like Longisquama, a theory which is contested by most other scientists in paleontology, and by experts in feather development and evolution such as R.O. Prum. See the Longisquama article for more on this alternative. If somebne wishes to expand it, preferably with citations to the various authors who reject the theropod origin, the Longisquama article may be a good starting point.Dinoguy2 21:18, 15 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Controversy about bird origins 

message: "The three mating systems that predominate among birds are polyandry, polygyny, and monogamy. Monogamy is seen in approximately 91% of all bird species. Polygyny constitutes 2% of all birds and polyandry is seen in less than 1%."
This is simply not true.  Polygamy is far more rampant in the avian world than this.  A distinction must be made between the tradtional concept of monogamy and social monogamy. JSB 142.150.48.172 21:01, 19 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mating systems and parental care 

message: It is noted on the page that "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 expelling urine."
Is this worth mentioning?  Birds do not produce urine, so why would it matter that they don't expell it via their phallus?  It is just as valid to say that they don't shoot balloons out of it, and equally absurd.
While some birds such as chickens have a very rudimentary phallus, in waterfowl and ratites (especially Ostrich) this organ can be large and well developed.  You are correct in the discussion that it is intended as a copulatory organ.  Birds do produce urine.  In chickens it is estimated that an output of 500 - 1000ml per day could be expected.  The ureters do exit to the cloaca where the urine will appear as a white cap to the feces.  The urine is composed mostly of uric acid.  Resource: Avian Physiology, P.D. Sturkie, ed.     --Dr Bird 01:30, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Noooo! The avian phallus (which can be quite some piece of work, see Argentine Blue-bill) works differently from the mammalian one: the cloaca does not exit through it, but it is a protrusion of the cloaca wall. The function of the avian phallus in copulation/fertilization is not quite resolved; certainly, most birds do well without one. Sperm does not run through the bird phallus, but along it. Dysmorodrepanis 15:47, 27 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Avian phallus

message: There is a huge discussion on the Wikiproject Tree of Life pages about whether we should use capital initial letters in the common names of species of plants and animals.  However, it is (virtually) undisputed that we should always do so for birds, because that is the rule in the technical literature of ornithology.  Please don't break that rule on this page of all pages, unless you can persuade everyone else that we should do away with it... and I don't fancy your chances.  seglea 01:52, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about the capitalization thing. I was unaware that this had been the subject of much discussion since I did not see it mentioned on this page. And to me the capitalization seemed inconsistent, and I thought I was regularizing things. My mistake.Robertmacgrogan 16:44, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Capital letters for common names of species - Please!!!

message: As a non-expert I can follow the start of this section reasonably well,
but get confused and almost totally lost from these sentences onwards (end of second paragraph):
:It is assumed that when such male care is necessary, monogamy will evolve directly with this. It seems strange then that a male’s ability to defend mates and resources relies on his ability to separate himself from parental care.
Ok, monogamy follows from male care. This reduces male's ability to defend mates (against competitors?) and resources (nesting sites?). Is the last sentence 
accepted by bird experts as true?
Further on there is this about male incubation:
:With the extreme loss of mating opportunities, there is a reduction in the reproductive success among males.
Why would this lead to a reduction? I thought reproductive success meant success
at producing an offspring, and not just success at fertlising an ovum, but what good does it do a species (or the male's genes, so to speak) if many ova are fertlised but very few (or none if incubation fails) develop
to further pass on their genes?
The remaining paragraphs don't seem to state anything definite, but appear to
be like an essay or an academic discussion, and we're left with the
last unenlightening sentence:
:For now, until more research is done, we must instead be content to just know it persists.
Sorry if this seems critical, but I honestly didn't get a sense of what the state of knowledge is in this area, but being a nonexpert cannot see how
to improve the wording. -Wikibob | Talk 18:39, 2005 Jan 23 (UTC)
This section also needs editing for NPOV, and to discuss nonmonogamy as well. It's known that many apparently monogamous birds are not genetically monogamous; one recent study says as many as 40% of the eggs laid in their study species were fertilized by another male and not the mother's mate. ("Infidelity has its benefits", ScienceNOW 6 April 2005, original study in Proc. Roy. Soc. B) This section seems to be driving toward some particular theory of avian monogamy, and it seems odd that this isn't mentioned.
-Bedawyn (7 April 2005)
This section was full of what seems to be POV academic speculation.  Much of the speculation was not written very coherently, and I personally thought a lot of it was illogical.  (Clearly if many bird species have monogomy and paternal care, it has been an advantage for them, so why all the statements on why it wouldn't be?)  While my personal opinion as a nonexpert isn't that relevant, it gives me a strong suspicion that the material is either a misrepresentation of certain academic viewpoints, or the viewpoint of a particular group studying a problem which no one has reached a consensus on.  At any rate, I don't think speculation on why monogomy and paternal care evolved among birds needs to be included in a general article on birds—I just want to know what their mating practices are today in an article like this.  Hopefully someone who knows something on this topic can come along and rewrite what I left of the section to be more coherent and informative.  —Tox 17:19, 26 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mating systems and parental care 

message: The article says birds have hollow bones.  This is not true according to this link , my textbook, my professors.  I'm going to edit that part out. -User:132.177.122.113 20:19, Apr 20, 2005
:From your link: "Birds need to be light to aid flight, and their hollow bones reduce skeletal mass without sacrificing strength." You didn't understand the text. -Hapsiainen 21:13, Apr 20, 2005 (UTC)
::Heres another one.  I don't think that you understood it.
::http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/dec96/842732147.Zo.r.html
::Their bones contain marrow and support structures.
:::Then you could write more about it under "Other anatomy". People were suspicious when you removed text. I don't think that word hollow is misleading. -Hapsiainen 11:21, Apr 21, 2005 (UTC)
You are both right.  Using the chicken as the example "pneumatic" bones in the humerus are indeed hollow for flight and are less dense than the femur that holds the weight of the bird and has to endure the pounding of running.   Just as there are specific muscle fiber types for these birds there are specialized bones depending on the area of the bird.  Even the eye of a chicken has a bony ring in order to retain its connical shape.
--Dr Bird 23:40, 24 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Bird bones

message: For want of a more appropriate tag (please feel free to suggest one); I've marked this page as "Cleanup" because the "family tree" image lacks any, let alone meaningfil, alt text. Andy Mabbett 11:57, 23 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: How about "Relationships between bird families". I think this meets the objective, as indicated in Wikipedia:Alternative text for images, of describing the function of the image. Alan Pascoe 21:48, 5 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: From the section on reproduction:
:The sperm is stored in the female's sperm storage tubules for anywhere from a week to a year, depending on the species of bird.
It would be nice to have a reference for this, as I believe that most bird sperm will only be stored inside the female for up to a few months. - Spots 17:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Doubtful that sperm lasts a year 

message: I'm bemused at how frequently this article is a target of vandalism.  Does anybody have an explanation of why this should be?  ACW 19:05, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For on thing, as a general overview of a major group of animals, it may get increased traffic from school kids doing assignments. This demographic is probably more likely to commit vandalism.Dinoguy2 19:33, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting hypothesis.  I'm going to go check Mammal, Reptile, and Fish. ACW 02:13, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Vandalism 

message: According to Charles Weber, birds lost their teeth because of termites; "Since birds are usually a predator, the only way that I can conceive of completely losing so valuable an organ as a set of teeth from all non marine species, would be that they went through a period when the young were all insectivorous and were forced to eat termite flying reproductive alates at a time when a high proportion of the alates were humus eaters had soil in their gut. 
Evolution toward lightness is not a plausible explanation by itself since gizzard stones are also heavy and teeth are very valuable and can be very small. Besides, teeth were retained for tens of millions of years prior to this and lightweight was canceled partly or wholly by stone ingestion. The iron and aluminum oxides of tropical soils form a phosphate that is highly insoluble in the slightly acid gut of birds." http://www.angelfire.com/nc/isoptera/soil.html
Don't forget the weight of the muscles needed to drive those teeth and the bones needed to anchor them and transmit their force. And don't get hung up on weight alone. Imagine the bird's body as a see saw with the pivot at the wings. The heavy gizzard is nearer the pivot and is below it. The bird's head is much further forward. Its beneficial to move the weight from the head to the gizzard.
And; "Ingestion by the reproductives of soil and humus eating termites (there are many humus eating species in the Amitermitinae) may have been the primary reason the birds lost teeth, however, with its phosphorus binding attribute in the bird's acid gut." http://www.angelfire.com/nc/isoptera/termites.html
:Spurious to the max. Loss of teeth and development of some sort of beak or similar structure was something that happened for a variety of reasons in a whole bunch of theropods, just as several lineages of them evolved feathers. In early birds, the new possibilities for acquiring food simply made it a better deal to get rid of the teeth once and for all. The teeth of Hesperornis (and probably the entire Hesperornithes} are fairly peculiar; they may even have re-evolved them (which is not as hard as it seems) but sadly, no recent research deals with this question although Marsh himself assigned Hesperornis to a distinct lineage ("Odontolcae") because of the teeth (he had not yet found many remains at that time) Dysmorodrepanis 07:37, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Why birds are toothless

message: There are many puzzling features of the functioning of bird anatomy. In particular, my wife and I can not figure out how water birds' (such as geese or gulls) feet manage to function (or even remain undamaged) while standing on ice in subzero cold. We have also seen Great Blue Herons standing in freezing water. In the latter case, it is also a mystery what herons manage to find to eat when they overwinter in New England. Could somebody expand on Bird Anatomy so that these mysteries could be explained?
:I think those details should go into specific articles about herons and ducks/geese/gulls, as they're unlikely to be general adaptations of birds. It is also possible to dedicate a special article to explaining such adaptations, and link this from the various dedicated articles (heron etc.). Regards, Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:18, 21 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You may want to look into concepts such as Supercooling. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:19, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

text: And possibly Antifreeze protein. - Samsara (talk • contribs) 18:22, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Ducks, geese, gulls etc have an ingenious heat-exchange system IIRC in the upper leg area (the part that is hidden in the body plumage). It can keep their feet at just above freezing temperature (approx 4 centigrades I think) which is literally a cool thing. The main problem is not freezing their feet off - the tissue in these bird's feet is very thin, more or less skin 'n' bones, and rich in blood vessels which transport body heat to the feet -, it is actually freezing to death because they'd loose too much heat via the feet. So they let their feet cool down to just above the point where they'd get frostbitten. As necessiated by the conditions, a duck can regulate the temperature of its feet between c.4 and >40 centigrades, probably at will at least to some extent. Dysmorodrepanis 07:47, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bird anatomy and function 

message: The 'see also' section of this article is really long, perhaps there is a case for a navigational template at the bottom of this article for articles about bird biology that are not related to the taxoboxes. Here is a very rough example, made without any skill, by canibalising the solar system nav box. 
[ edit ] Birds
Anatomy: Bird anatomy - Bird skeleton - Bird flight - Avian pallium - Egg - Feather - Wing (bird) - Physiology (bird)
Evolution and extinction. Bird evolution - Archaeopteryx - Bird hybrid - Late Quaternary prehistoric birds - Fossil birds - Sibley-Ahlquist taxonomy
Ecology: Bird ecology - Bird populations
Behaviour: Bird song - Bird intelligence - Bird migration - Bird reproduction
Bird types: Seabirds - Shorebirds - Waterbirds - Song birds - Birds of Prey - Poultry
Birds and Humans: Extinct birds - Bird ringing - Ornithology - Birdwatching - Birdfeeding - Bird conservation
Of course it needs a lot of work, (we have lots of other smaller specialised articles that might make it in), but it would provide some redlinks that would prompt some needed articles on bird biology other than species articles, and it might tidy up the bottom of this article. Any thoughts, or major objections to this? Anyone with more programming talent than me? Sabine's Sunbird  talk 07:28, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not bad :) you have my approval. Although the bird picture has a white square around it. I added some stuff, hope thats fine - Jak (talk) 19:22, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  navigational template 

message: Didn't the whole class of "aves" get thrown out a while ago?  and yet, for example, chicken is still listed as aves.  I'm confused.  Citizen Premier 04:25, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Usually, Sauropsida is used in the cladistic system, which does not use ranks. In these cases, birds are both sauropsids and avians. In the traditional taxonomic system, class sauropsida = class reptilia and does not contain class aves (meaning it is paraphyletic). Class Aves is still used by the vast majority of published sources.Dinoguy2 05:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  aren't they [[Sauropsid]]s? 

message: This article is currently a top priority for the Bird Wikiproject and is listed as a good article. It clearly needs some work, however, if it is to reach FA status. A read through has given me this list of 'to do's; I'd appreciate thoughts, objections and suggestions of other things needed. I'm prepared to do a lot of this myself, but it's pretty major stuff so I'm fishing for feedback fisrt.
:There is no information on bird behaviour other than nesting. Sections needed for bird feeding, migration, predator avoidance etc, combined with breeding section under behaviour banner.
:Ecology section needed.
:Changing nesting to breeding.
:Evolution section needs to be split into own article, then a condensed summary placed here per MOS Wikipedia:Summary style. Bird evolution is currently a redirect to Paleornithology, so it can simply be un-redirected.
:Expand the bird anatomy section to be better summary of separate article per MOS.
:Inline cites. It's going to need a lot of them. 
:Birds and humans + Threats to birds needs to be one section (called relationship with humans) with three subsections - aviculture and domestication (+hunting) - role in culture - threats and conservation.
:Images need to be rationalised. At the moment there are lots of pretty pictures that don't kink to the text. We have enough images on wikipedia and commons to chose good images that illustrate points made in the text, rather than just prettifying the article.
:Get rid of trivia section, all the points there should be incorporated into expanded article.
:Get rid of see also. Using a navbox and expanding the article should provide homes for most of the links, otherwise simply getting rid of them. Laundry lists are not FAish.
Anything I miss? Sabine's Sunbird  talk 01:24, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It may be useful to have a look over frog. It is the only featured article of a high taxon, and you can see what to do about some sections (like trivia, or popular culture in frog). It may also have some things you have missed out. I would like to go through the article, but I have to go to uni. --liquidGhoul 01:30, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  To do list 

message: Do you think that Protoavis was a basal coelurosaur?
:No, but most paleontologists think its made up from parts of prolacertiformes, pterosaurs, and coelophysids. (see the EvoWiki article on it here ) Dinoguy2 21:56, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protoavis as a coelurosaurian 

message: " The three mating systems that predominate among birds are polyandry, polygyny, and monogamy. Monogamy is seen in approximately 91% of all bird species. Polygyny constitutes 2% of all birds and polyandry is seen in less than 1%. " 
Shouldn't the sum of the percentages be closer to 100%? Joelito (talk) 19:35, 15 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I doubt that the others add to the missing 7%. Joelito (talk) 22:17, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: *I see your point. I'll look into the subject. MarioFanaticXV 22:20, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Does this make sense to anyone? 

message: There is quite a bit of vandalism on the page, much of which includes false information suggesting that birds came from reptiles. The only time humanity believed this was during the time in which we were foolish enough to believe in Macro-Evolution. The theory has since been proven false, and they are currently pushing to remove it from Biology and Earth Science text books. As such, we should move any information pertaining to evolution into the trivia section of the article, stating that it was once believed, not that it is scientific fact. Wikipedia should be kept as accurate as possible, as to avoid it being shut down by the courts for spreading libel. MarioFanaticXV 22:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not trivia and it is certainly not foolish. People pushing to remove it from biology and earth science texts are just that, POV pushers, not scientists. Joelito (talk) 22:29, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

text: Check Dinosaur-Bird connection which presents the argument (though alternate hypotheses are still lacking and could use somewhat more thorough discussion; if you add, be sure to properly cite your references). In addition, the concept "reptile" is unscientific and it is true that a lot of scientists would love to see it removed from textbooks. Dysmorodrepanis 09:41, 21 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Required Clean Up 

message: Kurochkin (2006) showed that the characters that birds share with theropod dinosaurs are convergent with those of theropods. He concluded that the clade Sauriurae (Archaeornithes + Enantiornithes) shares a number of characters with theropods, suggesting that sauriurines evolved from theropods in the Late Jurassic, and that the clade Ornithurae and Protoavis (which is placed in its own subclass, Praeornithurae) evolved from an archosaur ancestor in the Late Triassic. The suggestion that birds evolved independently of theropods is supported by embryological studies showing that the finger structure in birds is II-III-IV, in contrast to the I-II-III finger structure in theropods.
Within a few years, paleontogists will accept this hypothesis, with more fossil birds from the Mesozoic yet to be found, described, and named.
This paper also sheds new light to Protoavis texensis Chatterjee, 1991. This paper includes Protoavis in a cladistic analysis. In Kurochkin's phylogenetic analysis, the characters that unite Protoavis with Ornithurae are:
1. heterocoelous cervical vertebrae. If taken to mean completely heterocoelous vertebrae (as to distinguish neornithines from enantiornithines), absent in Confuciusornis, Archaeorhynchus, Yixianornis, Gansus and Ichthyornis.
2. voluminous tropibasal braincase. I don't know what tropibasal means, though no non-ornithurine Mesozoic bird braincases besides Archaeopteryx have ever been measured volumetrically.
3. reduced postorbital. Absent in Confuciusornis.
4. closed temporal fenestrae. Absent in Confuciusornis, correlated with previous character.
5. narrow elongated coracoid. Also in enantiornithines
6. mobile articulation of the scapula to the coracoid through a fossa in the coracoid and a prominence on the scapula. Absent in confuciusornithids.
7. deep renal depressions on the internal surface of the ilium and sacrum. Absent in Confuciusornis, Patagopteryx, Yixianornis, Apsaravis, hesperornithines and Ichthyornis.
8. fusion between both ends of the third and fourth metacarpals. Absent in confuciusornithids, Archaeorhynchus and Hongshanornis.
9. plantar shift of the third metatarsal in the proximal part of the foot. Absent in confuciusornithids, Archaeorhynchus and Patagopteryx.
The abstract of this paper reads:
The hypothesis of the direct origin of birds from theropod dinosaurs has recently become widespread. Direct sisterly relationships between theropods and birds were assumed in the basis of random and formal synapomorphies, such as the number of caudal vertebrae, relative length of the humerus, and flattening of the dorsal margin of the pubis. In essence, this hypothesis is supported by the characters of theropods and birds, such as the presence of feathering, furcula, uncinate processes of ribs, pygostyle, double-condyled dorsal joint of the quadrate, and posteriorly turned pubis, which are recognized as homologies. Until recently, these characters have been regarded as avian apomorphies; however, they are presently known in various coelurosaurian groups. At the same time, they occur in various combinations in the Dromaeosauridae, Troodontidae, Oviraptoridae, Therizinosauridae, and Tyrannosauridae. None of the theropod groups possesses the entire set of these characters. This suggests that theropods and birds acquired them in parallel. Theropod dinosaurs and Sauriurae (Archaeornithes and Enantiornithes) show a number of important system synapomorphies, which indicate that they are closely related. Ornithurine birds lack such synapomorphies; however, their monophyly is supported by a large number of diagnostic characters. The hypothesis of independent origin of Sauriurae and Ornithurae is substantiated; the former are considered to have evolved from theropods in the Jurassic, while the latter deviated from a basal archosauromorph group in the Late Triassic. The hypothesis that birds existed in the Early Mesozoic is supported by the findings of small avian footprints in the Upper Triassic and Lower Jurassic of different continents.
While proponents of the alleged theropod origin for birds dismiss Kurochkin's paper as a phylogenetic ruse, saying that Protoavis is too poorly preserved to be relevant to the way the avian family tree is phylogenetically reconstructed, proponets of the thecodont origin for birds agree within Kurochkin. So does Sankar Chatterjee.
Scientists have thought that birds colonized the Americas in the Cretaceous, but the discovery of Protoavis suggests a Triassic colonization of the Americas by birds. 
Kurochkin, E. N., 2006, Parallel evolution of theropod dinosaurs and birds: Zoologicheskii Zhurnal, v. 85, n. 3, p. 283-297.
:Nope, that refers to the less-than-scientific pooh-poohing of Protoavis. There are but few truly scientific analyses of the material, of which those of Witmer and some contributor to EvoWiki stand out, and they focus not really on the bad preservation (one has to work with what one gets, after all) but on the complete lack of evidence that these remains were found in association. According to these, Protoavis is a chimeric non-species composed of archosaurs and just maybe primitive dinosaurs. This would render Kurochkin's analysis pointless, but for entirely other reasons than outlined above. See the Protoavis article for what non-avian archosaurs its bits and pieces may be attributed to.
:I think the treatment of Protoavis by the scientific community is shameful. Witmer's analyses on it stands out for its fairness; even though P. is quite fringe and controversial at least, it deserves more than an off-hand dismissal. For example, the vertebrae are best explained as being from an avicephalan diapsid, which bears its name with much justification (although only the most radial theories would consider it anything but convergent evolution)
:Interestingly, Chatterjee himself would strongly object to use of his pet to refute an evolutionary theropod-bird relationship. Dysmorodrepanis 21:58, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Evidence from analysis that birds evolved independently of theropods