L1:

What are the three basic reasons that humans are inclined to study birds?

1.)    Fascination with flight

2.)    Economic importance

3.)    Very conspicuous

4.)    ‘they are cool”

L1:

What economic importance do birds hold?

-          Food.

-          Clothing and bedding.

-          Pets!

-          Hunting.

-          Bird watching! Brings in more revenue than hunting.

L1:

In what way are birds conspicuous to encourage people’s interest in them?

-          They are largely active during the day, easy to watch, found everywhere, attractive (to look at and listen to!).

L1:

How could one basically describe a bird?

-          A bipedal, vertebrate animal, of the class Aves, reptiles, derived from therapod dinosaurs.

L1:

What are the distinctive features of birds?

-          Not flight (there are flying mammals), instead feathers, and bills.

L2:

When did feathers first arise?

-          Due to the discovery of Archeopteryx (with well-formed feathers), we estimate feathers arose well before 135 million years ago.

L2:

Please explain the two theories that explain why feathers arose from scales.

1.)    Flight hypothesis: elongation/fraying of scales thought to help with gliding.

2.)    Thermoregulation hypothesis: increasing scale size and fraying at edges helped ancestral birds maintain their body temperature.

L2:

What substance are modern feathers made of?

-          Keratin (the protein our hair and nails are made of).

L2:

What is the difference between plumulaceous and pennaceous feathers?

-          Plumulaceous feathers are fluffy and do not interlock strongly, often are used for insulation. Pennaceous feathers are tightly interlocking and are the bulk of flight feathers.

L2:

What are the five (general) types of feathers?

1.)    Contour feathers

2.)    Insulation (down/semiplumes0

3.)    Flight feathers (remiges and retrices)

4.)    Bristles

5.)    Filoplumes

L2:

What is the purpose and characteristics of a contour feather?

-          Provide a basic body covering, they are symmetrical, pennaceous and plumulaceous, have an afterfeather.

L2:

What is the purpose and characteristics of an insulation feather?

-          Made up of down and semiplumes, they are symmetrical, plumulaceous, and may lack rachis.

L2:

What is the purpose and characteristic of a flight feather?

-          Help to fly: retrices are wing feathers, remiges are tail feathers. They are pennaceous and tightly interlock, asymmetrical, and sometimes modified for additional functions.

L2:

What is the purpose and characteristic of a bristle feather?

-          Function varies among birds and is not known well. Often found on heads, are vaneless contour feathers.

L2:

What is the purpose and characteristic of a filoplume feather?

-          Hairlike, sensory structures, lacking vanes. Monitor the position of vaned feathers.

L4 

List the major ways that mammals differ from birds (there are about six).

L2:

What are the four most basic uses of feathers?

-          Flight

-          Insulation

-          Waterproofing

-          Display

L2:

What are the patches of feathered and unfeathered skin on a bird called? What is their function?

-          Feathered sections are pterylae, bald patches are apteria. Two possible functions: detection of feather position, and offloading heat. Some birds have no apteria! Mostly island flightless birds.

L2:

What are the three pigments that create color in birds’ feathers?

-          Melanins for grays, browns, and black, carotenoids for reds, oranges and yellows, poryphrins for bright brown, some greens and red.

L2:

What is the alternate method of color expression to using pigment, and what colors are expressed in this way?

-          Structural colors formed by the physics of light can create blues by reflecting short waves of light, and iridescence is created by the angles that light hits feathers.

L2:

What is the function of preen oil?

-          Helps to keep feathers moist (avoids damage… like conditioner for hair!) and contain chemicals that deters bacteria and fungi that digest keratin and feather-chewing parasites, and help maintain waterproofing and insulation.

L2:

What is the minimum molt cycle?

-          Birds replace the down they are born with with a juvenal plumage, the replace juvenal plumage with basic plumage. This basic plumage is replaced (usually) annually. Some birds have an alternate plumage as well; used for breeding season or camouflage (ex. White for winter).

L3:

What are two basic developments that will facilitate flight?

-          Reducing body mass and maximizing lift.

L3:

What are some changes birds have undergone to reduce/relocate their mass?

-          Loss/reduction/fusion of various skeletal structures, laying eggs rather than carrying young internally, limits on body size and shape.

L3:

How does the shape of a bird’s wing help it achieve lift?

-          The bernouilli effect: air flows around an air foil. Distance across the top is farther than the distance beneath it, the air above it must flow faster, this creates lower pressure and the foil will rise.

L3:

What are the three methods a bird can create lift?

1.)    (on windy days) Simply by facing the wind and opening their wings at an angle that deflects air downward.

2.)    By jumping off a high perch.

L3:

Define forward thrust, drag, and the relationship of the two in terms of achieving flight.

-          Forward motion in the opposite direct of flight (wing flapping).

-          Drag is the friction force that resists the movement of a solid object through air.

-          Birds must create enough forward thrust to overcome the drag of the air against it’s body.

L3:

What types of drag exist?

-          Profile drag: friction between the bird and the air; a problem at higher airspeeds.

L3:

What is wing loading?

-          A bird’s mass divided by its wing area. Low wing loading makes flying easier and vice versa.

L3:

How does wing length effect a bird’s ability to produce lift?

-          Long wings produce more lift.

L3:

What are some wing qualities that will reduce the two types of drag (profile and induced)?

-          Thin leading edge will reduce profile drag and friction.

-          Pointed wing tips reduce induced drag and turbulence.

L3:

Describe the wings associated with gliders and flappers.

-          Gliders have long, narrow wings. Flappers have shorter, broader wings.

L3:

Describe both the wings associated with speed, and wings associated with maneuverability.

-          Speed with long, narrow, pointed wings. Maneuverability with shorter, broad, rounded wings.

L3:

What are the two theories for the origins of flight?

-          Cursorial theory: ancestors of birds live on the ground and the evolution of feathers helped them with thermoregulation, prey capture, and/or balance while running. Eventually feathers became big enough so they could allow birds to become airborne.

-          Arboreal theory: early birds lived in the trees and feathers arose because they provided advantages when leaping from branch to branch.

-          ***NOTE: discovery of fossils of therapod dinosaurs with feathers lends evidence to cursorial theory.

L3:

What are the consequences of flight (there are four)?

1.)    Diversity of body form is fairly low.

2.)    Live birth is not an option for birds.

3.)    Flight is not compatible with some lifestyles.

4.)    Powered flight is “expensive”.

L3:

For what reason would flightlessness arise and given three situations in which flightlessness would pay.

-          When the costs of flight are just too great compared to the advantages of flight.

1.)    Birds that live on islands with no predators.

2.)    Birds that dive and feed underwater.

3.)    Birds that are very big and can outrun predators.

L4:

What was the importance of Archeopteryx lithographica?

-          Fossil found in Germany, 1861.

-          Capable of climbing and weak flight.

-          Alive in late Jurassic (135 – 155 million years ago).

-          THE MISSING LINK BETWEEN REPTILES AND BIRDS.

-          A dinosaur but has modern feathers.

L4:

List the key similarities that birds share with therapod dinosaurs.

L4:

List the key differences between modern birds and therapod dinosaurs.

L4:

What period is thought to have been the time birds diversified mostly?

-          Tertiary.

L4: 

When did modern bird orders arise?

-          60 million years ago (Tertiary).

E1

Birds are not the only animals to have evolved flight; which of the following accurately reflect their success as flying animals and their importance?

a.) birds are more numerous than any other kind of flying vertebrate.

b.) birds have occupied every kind of habitat

c.) there are few species of birds, compared to other kinds of flying verts.

d.) birds are feathered mammals! They share lots of our physiology! 

e.) birds are active in the daytime; easy to study, compared to most vertebrates.

f.) birds are so attractive! to people that birdwatchers generate more economic activity than hunters do (zing) 

CIRCLE

a.), b.), e.), f.) 

E2

Which of the following are features of birds that indicate their reptilian ancestry?

a.) sclerotic ring

b.) a lower of of a single, unfused bone

c.) anucleate RBC's

d.) mammary glands

e.) a single inner ear bone

f.) feathers 

CIRCLE

a.), b.), f.) 

E2

Evidence that the climate of the planet is changing in ways that will effect birds includes:

a.) the polar ice caps have grown significantly larger

b.) the sun is producing less solar radiation

c.) nights are longer than they used to be

d.) the surface temperature of the planet has risen almost a full degree C in past century

e.) sea level has risen an average of 3 mm per year since 1993

f.) eleven of the past 12 years have been the warmest since humans began recording. 

CIRCLE

e.), f.) 

E2

Which of the following are ways in which habitats for birds will be affected by climate change?

a.) some places will get more precip than they used to

b.) some place will get less precip than they used to

c.) some habitats will shift their locations

d.) some habitats will be eliminated because a shift will not be possible.

e.) some habitats will become reduced in area

f.) some habitats will be inundated with rising water 

CIRCLE

a.), b.), c.), d.), e.), f.) 

E2

What is the significance of the Chinese fossils I showed photos of in class?

a.) they provide examples of the stages of evolution of feathers from very simples structures to modern feathers.

b.) the form of feathers on the fossils and the locations of the feathers on their bodies demonstrate that feather had to have evolved for flight.

c.) they demonstrate that feathering was probably widespread in the therapods.

d.) they provide evolutionary intermediates between dinosaurs and modern birds.

e.) the show that it is possible to evolve four wings on a single animal.

f.) the fact that they have feathers on them makes it highly likely that birds evolved from another group of reptiles than the dinos. 

CIRCLE

a.), c.), d.), e.) 

E2

Some of the major ideas and evidence about how and why birds evolved include:

a.) the arboreal theory proposes that early birds lived in trees.

b.) early birds, like all other therapods were quadrapedal.

c.) the cursorial theory proposes early birds used their forelimbs in prey capture.

d.) baby quail flap their wings when they are chased up an incline.

e.) it has been observed that as a quail's feathers grow in, it can successfully run up a steeper and steeper incline.

f.) only large increments of change in wing surface could have been advantageous to early birds. 

CIRCLE

a.), c.), d.), e.) 

E2

Which of the following is true about feathers?

a.) carotenoid pigments are manufactured by birds.

b.) melanins make feathers black, grey, brownish, and they also make feathers resistant to wear.

c.) blue colors result from the physical alteration of light at the surface of the feather.

d.) the wear in feathers resulting in the loss of barbules can change feather color.

e.) bright red feathers are an accurate indicator of whether males will be good providers of food to their mate and chicks.

f.) birds in hot, dry climates tend to be light colored. 

CIRCLE

b.), c.), d.), e.), f.) 

E2
Which of the following represent real avian solutions to problems presented by flight?

a.) birds with small wings relative to their body mass flap very slowly.

b.) the avian sternum has a unique structure for the attachment of flight muscles.

c.) an albatross has sacrificed ability to spring directly into flight without running in exchange for the ability to glide long distances without flapping.

d.) vultures use warm, rising air to avoid flapping.

e.) the muscles powering the forelimbs in birds are shifted away from the center of the body.

f.) no lineage of birds has ever evolved live birth. 

CIRCLE

b.), c.), d.), f.) 

E2

Which of the following feature of the mod bird body form contribute to the ability of birds to fly?

a.) pneumatization of the bones

b.) addition of digits to the hand

c.) a complete loss of teeth

d.) a smooth feather coat

e.) a decrease in size

f.) a skeleton that is more rigid! 

CIRCLE

a.), c.), d.), e.), f.) 

E2

Feathers are uniquely modifiable structures, and the types of feathers include:

a.) semifroddos

b.) semiplumes

c.) rectrices

d.) contour

e.) remiges

f.) bristles 

CIRCLE

b.), c.), d.), e.), f.)