Birds, like other species, have characteristics in common that group them into a single class, many of these common traits have to do with their plumage, their skeletons, their gizzards and even their beaks and legs, in this entry we will see the bird characteristics to learn a little more about these animals.
Main characteristics of birds
Birds share many traits with other flying species, although there are many genera and subfamilies within this class of animals, some of them will be explained below, beginning with the fact that they are vertebrates that can move with their upper extremities (wings and fins) and walk or jump. with the lower ones. They have wings as a product of the evolution of each of the species, however some can fly and others cannot, some have very long feathers and others very short, some are large and others are very small.
According to history, the origin of this class dates back to theropod dinosaurs, which are the ones that are bipedal, it happened that these animals survived the extinction of all the other species of dinosaurs that inhabited the world at the time, but with the radiation that remained in birds arose on earth, in fact distinguishing them from one another was not always a simple process that used morphology to differentiate them.
The second characteristic in common that can be seen is that they all tend to nest, they feed their young inside the nest and outside with their beak, they migrate when the climate changes temperature, they mate and reproduce in specific seasons of the year and they kept in groups or flocks, clearly many of these are shared with other classes such as mammals.
Another main characteristic is that these animals are light in weight, although some of them are quite large and can weigh more than 150 kilos, a large part of them can weigh only grams and be very small, which facilitates their flight and increases their speed. , although the speed also has to do with the shape of its wings.
bird plumage
In the first place, what differentiates them from other species is that their skin is not moist but dry and they have birds like no other class of the animal kingdom, this allows them to fly although there are some that do not and also allow them to heat up to regulate the temperature of their bodies. They display their plumage to mate with partners of their species, to identify and differentiate themselves from each other, and even to camouflage themselves in the landscape.
All birds shed their feathers as well as Snakes Spain they shed their skin, they are also cleaned or groomed with themselves day by day with the beak to remove dirt or particles that should not be there. As for flight, almost all of them can fly, but approximately 60 of the existing species cannot do so. It can be seen that those that do can differ in terms of form because each species has adaptations in its physiognomy that alter its form of flight and gives each one a style.
There are differences in flight due to the shape of the feathers:
- Short feathers: Birds with short feathers can be chickens, partridges
- Long feathers: Some examples of these birds are hummingbirds, peacocks, woodpeckers, eagles, sparrows, among others.
- Rudimentary feathers: These are those that simulate having hairs.
- Featherless: Penguins are the best example for featherless birds, they lack plumage and do not have wings to fly, they are actually fins that allow them to swim fast.
The wings also condition the type of flight they perform, the way they look and the habitat where they are kept:
- Pointed: Birds that have narrow and fairly pointed wings have a fast flight compared to other species.
- Rounded: Those with mostly wide and rounded wings stay in close quarters and are not as fast to fly.
- In the form of fingers: There are birds that have wings in the form of fingers, such as vultures. They have them on the tips of their wings and it makes it easy for them to fly high.
many will be found characteristic birds Because of its vivid colors, the colors are really something distinctive of the birds that cannot be matched by other species of the kingdom. Of course there are exotic animals with amazing colors but birds have the largest number of highly varied colors in their entire class.
Regarding the migration of birds, there are some that migrate more than others, but those that do so frequently fly in sync with the rest of the birds that fly in the group. They do this when the temperatures change by seasons, since some cannot withstand very cold winters or very hot summers, so they move and go to other places while the season passes. They also do it to look for food in other places when they are in the process of Reproduction in Birds.
After the migration you look for places to stay while the season passes, perfect places to build their nests and for their young to be born. The studies carried out to discover how they orient themselves when they are traveling have yielded conclusions that indicate that they use the sun to guide themselves, in addition to smell and memory with which they keep reference points that they have seen on previous trips, some are also sensitive to electromagnetic fields.
bird skeletons
As for their bones, some of them have gaps in the bones that allow them to have better mobility and lightness of their body, while their spine has more vertebrae in the neck area so that they can be more flexible, all this in favor of improve the ability to fly and mobility they have. The fingers of the birds (which are four) differentiate them into several groups:
The anisodactyls are those that have three fingers in front and one back, while the syndactyls seem to have their fingers together. The zygodactyls, on the other hand, have two fingers forward and two fingers behind, the pamprodactyls have their four fingers in front, which prevents them from walking or perching somewhere. Finally, heterodactyls have fingers three and four pointing forward and fingers one and two pointing backwards, unlike zygodactyls, which have fingers two and three in front and fingers one and four behind.
Gizzards and spikes
The gizzard is a part of their body that some species developed to grind the food they eat, some of them eat stones for digestion and grind them with the gizzard. This part allows them to store food in the sack they have in their dewlap and thus take it to where their young are to feed them.
As for their beaks, this shape of their mouth is not unique to this class of animals, other species also have them such as turtles, platypuses, octopuses, among others. But birds don't have teeth and that allows them to feed themselves, attract females of their species, search for food in different spaces and other things. Depending on its shape, its size and its strength, the bird will eat some things and not others, likewise the amount of food that will enter its mouth will be conditioned by these factors.
There are several types of beaks in birds:
- There are the curved and hooked beaks that are typical of birds of prey, these are ideal for birds that eat fruits and seeds.
- Also the beaks that are spear-shaped, ideal for birds that eat aquatic animals.
- There are also long and very fine beaks with which they can eat insects, these can also be long and strong so that the birds can eat the meat of other birds or other types of animals.
- There are beaks that have a tube shape, these are less common but they are found by birds that are nectarivorous and with them they can reach flowers more easily.
- And the thick and short beaks that are characteristic of granivorous birds or birds that eat seeds.
Other characteristics
- Birds are not very good in terms of their sense of smell, unlike some mammals that can smell from meters away, some birds do not have such a developed sense.
- On the other hand, their sense of vision is quite developed, which is necessary knowing that they fly long distances. But species like the eagle have a visual acuity incomparable with that of other animals.
- Their sense of hearing is also very good and some of them even have echolocation, like several marine species.
- Birds share a similarity with humans and it is about the capabilities that their vocal organ called syrinx gives them, birds can combine several notes and produce melodies just like humans with their voice.
- As for their pairing, they can be polygamous and monogamous, that is, they can stay with a single partner all their lives or only to reproduce and they can also have many partners, everything will depend on the species.
Differences between each other
Previously, the characteristics shared by many species within the bird family were mentioned, however they differ greatly and in various ways:
- Because of the shape of their beaks and their claws, which condition their feeding and the way they hunt their prey
- They differ in their behavior, some are migratory and others are residents, so their body is adapted in different ways to resist or not temperature changes. In addition to that, some are nocturnal and others diurnal, so they are active to hunt and sing during the day or at night.
- The shape of their bodies also differentiates them, there are birds that are very large because of their legs or their feathers, an example of this is peacocks and flamingos, a hummingbird can measure 64 millimeters and weigh almost 3 grams, while an ostrich It can measure almost 3 meters and weigh 155 kilograms.