Flightless sea bird. What birds can't fly? Galapagos flightless cormorants

A bird that cannot fly is perceived as strange as a bird that can swim. Why do we need wings if they cannot lift into the air? However, there are many birds in the world that cannot fly: ostriches running across the expanses of Africa, penguins living on the ice coast of Antarctica, kiwi in New Zealand.

Although, of course, when compared with the number of species of flying birds, there are very few incompetent people in the world. This is natural, because it is easier for those who can fly to survive in this cruel world.

Benefits of Flying Birds

If a formidable lion sneaks up on a gazelle, then the only thing it can do is try to run away. And if a cat wants to catch a sparrow, then he can, flapping his wings, make vertical takeoff and be instantly safe. Those who can fly have other advantages as well. In search of food, you can fly long distances, and this is much more profitable than scouring for food on the ground. Knowing how to fly, you can arrange a nest for raising offspring at such a height where a dangerous enemy will not reach the chicks.

The fact that birds can fly has helped them become the second largest class of vertebrates. There are about 8,500 species of birds in the world, and only 4,000 species of mammals (one of them is you and me). The most numerous and successfully surviving type of animal is insects, there are almost 1 million species of them (by the way, almost all of them can fly).

Birds fly, but there are at least 10 species on the planet that refused to do so. As a rule, the reason is simple - there are no predators nearby, but each species is unique in its own way and the loss of the ability to fly is also special for everyone.

1. Toadstools

it strange name waterfowl, similar to ducks in appearance, received for their disgusting-tasting meat. Because of this, they did not stop hunting them, because feathers are of particular value. By the way, not all grebes do not yet fly, but most have already adapted to dive into the water to save their lives.

2. Galapagos flightless cormorants


it huge birds who dive excellently. They can flap their wings, but they have already forgotten how to fly. On land, it is very easy to catch them, because there are only about 1,500 individuals left. An endangered species.

3. Nandu


Birds that settled in South America. Able to reach speeds of 60 km / h. During such a high-speed run, the rhea can spread its wings, but this is more for balance than for take-off. These South African birds have a special mating: the male tries to mate with a large number of females at a time, so that later he can collect all the eggs in one nest and hatch them personally.

4. Emu


Australian emus are excellent runners. What it lacks in flight, it makes up for in its bellicose ability to defend itself - with its strong legs and strong claws, the emu can break a fence and seriously injure a person.

5. Cassowaries


Tropical birds from New Guinea. Brightly colored and truly aggressive, although they remain herbivores. Locals try not to catch the eye and tourists are not advised to do this, because the aggressiveness of cassowaries comes to inflicting deep wounds.

6. Tristan Shepherds


The Tristan shepherds are the smallest of the flightless birds. They forgot how to fly, because there is no danger for them. Their habitat is the impregnable island. The steep cliffs around the island do not allow penetrating the land from the sea, so the isolation of the region has created quite comfortable conditions for the carefree life of birds.

7. Ostriches


The largest birds in the world, which you can read about and. It can weigh 160 kg and reach a height of 270 cm. The speed of movement is 70 km / h. They say about ostriches that they hide their heads in the sand, but this is a myth. Sometimes they put their head to the ground, hiding, but their main way of survival is flight.

8 Emperor Penguins


Beautiful birds that can't fly. On land they look extremely clumsy, but in the water they behave like real swimmers, able to dive to a depth of up to 560 m. It is noteworthy that they hatch eggs in special leather pockets.

9. Kakapo


Kakapo parrots living in New Guinea forgot how to fly, because nothing posed a danger to them for several million years. However, with the arrival of a man who brought rats, cats and dogs, the population almost died out, not having time to adapt to new conditions. In total, about 200 individuals remained on the planet kakapo.

10. Kiwi


Lives in New Zealand. An amazing bird whose feathers look more like fur. She has no tail, and she looks extremely harmless, but if you pose a threat to her, then she will release her long and sharp claws, from which she will not be healthy.

As you can see, the main reason that birds stop flying is the absence of danger over the long centuries of evolution. However, the arrival of man changes the conditions of life so quickly that non-flying birds do not have time to adapt. Of the extinct birds, dodos can be mentioned - the entire population disappeared, since the dodos forgot how not only to fly, but also to run away.

self-taught partisan

Birds that can't fly

Keelless, but not turretless
He who is born as a bird must not fly. Zoologists say that the ability to fly is not yet a sign of a bird. Some birds do not need flight at all, because they lead a terrestrial or aquatic lifestyle. And they have nowhere to fly. Here they have food, here they have a nest.

The general rule is this: a bird can fly if its mass does not exceed 20 kg. The ratio between the bearing surface of the wing and the dimensions of the body at more weight is such that, even when vigorously flapping its wings, the bird will not rise into the air. Heavy bustards and hens scatter to take off.


The flight is most difficult for ratites: ostriches, emus, cassowaries, kiwis... Most of them live in the Southern Hemisphere. There is no keel on the sternum, so they dig on the ground. They run really fast, which saves. Therefore, they all (even the undersized kiwi) have strong, muscular legs, like athletes. Well, there is no need to talk about ostriches, the one who was on the ostrich race knows.

But not only keelless ones do not have the ability to fly. This property can also be lost by a classic, completely full-fledged bird. If it turns out that life on earth is so good that there is nothing to catch in heaven. Flightless bird species are known among geese, ibises, parrots, shepherds, cormorants, pigeons, grebes and ducks. Once accidentally finding themselves on the islands, where there were no enemies, but there was a lot of food, they forgot how - and most importantly - why to fly. For example, Galapagos cormorants or short-winged grebes living on Lake Titicaca not only forgot how to fly, their wings generally began to decrease. So the birds tried to reduce the supply of air in their plumage and reduce the resistance of the buoyancy force when diving. A terrible surprise awaited all the island birds when the natives took and brought in cats, dogs and other animals unpleasant for birds.

List of birds with disabilities
Penguin-like (Sphenisciformes). Penguins live mainly in the water. Their wings have changed into flippers.

Ostrich-like (Struthioniformes). Ostriches are too heavy to fly. To take to the air with such a mass, you need huge wings. And in order to move such wings, the muscles must become even stronger and more massive.

Nandu-shaped (Rheiformes). Outwardly, they resemble the African ostrich, but the degree of their relationship remains a matter of dispute among scientists. Nandu are characteristic large birds of the savannas of subtropical and temperate latitudes of South America.

Cassowaries (Casuariiformes). Often combined with a detachment of ostriches. Included in two families: Cassowaries (Casuariidae) and Emu (Dromaiidae)

Kiwi-shaped or wingless (Apterygiformes)
Kiwi - flightless ratite birds, weigh 3 - 3.5 kg, length 50 - 80 cm. The body is covered with hair-like feathers.

Here are a few birds that can't fly.

For example...

cormorant

This is the Galapagos flightless cormorant. A bird from the pelican order, cormorant family. The cormorant is the only bird in the family that has completely lost the ability to fly. As a result, it reaches a fairly large size, being the largest cormorant species on Earth. Due to their lack of flight ability, these birds are easy prey for introduced predators such as dogs, cats, rats and wild boars. Today there are only about 1600 individuals of this species.

Outwardly, cormorants resemble ducks, differ only in short, as if chopped off wings.

Since the flightless great cormorant cannot swim from the mainland to the islands (when fishing, it never swims more than 100 meters from the coast), the question arises: where could it come from? Darwin suggested that it descended from great cormorants that flew to the islands and gradually lost its ability to fly. We now understand that such changes occurred as a result of mutation or genetic copying error. This mutation could have been detrimental to birds, but was beneficial to the great cormorants that live on this particular island.3

This situation reminds us of the story of flightless beetles on windy islands. Such beetles are more likely to survive there, while flying beetles may be blown far beyond the islands. Or perhaps this is just an example of the diminishing influence of natural selection - without the presence of predators on the mainland and with an abundance of food in the sea, the loss of the ability to fly is not as critical as the loss of sight of cave dwellers over generations.5 In any case, this is not an example of evolution ; a mutation in the great cormorant that renders it unable to fly is an example of the loss of genetic information. "Evolution in action" requires changes that result in new genetic information.

Tristan Shepherd


In the southern part of the Atlantic Ocean on the island of Inaccessible, belonging to the Tristan da Cunha archipelago. with an area of ​​just over 10 km, the smallest flightless bird lives - the Tristan shepherd. This species usually weighs about 30 grams and has a length of 17 cm. Here, on Inaccessible, the bird is not at all threatened by predators.

Tristan shepherds are distributed throughout the island, but prefer to live in small groups in open pastures and hide in fern bushes. During the breeding season, from October to January, you can see the nest of the Tristan shepherd. It is carefully constructed from plants and hidden under a wicker canopy. And in order to get through the dense vegetation to their nests, small birds make original grassy tunnels up to 50 cm long. Tristan shepherds feed on insects, but they will not refuse berries or seeds either.

Previously, even smaller than the Tristan shepherd lived on Earth, flightless birds. So, Stephen's bushwren lived on Stevens Island. Their habitat was also free from predators until the lighthouse keeper's cat appeared there and killed the whole species.

Ecologists fear that the Tristan shepherd boy may also have enemies who will exterminate his small population. But today these birds are only threatened by periodic flooding of their nests.

Kakapo

This large bird - kakapo, or owl parrot, (Strigops habroptilus) - is the only parrot that has forgotten how to fly in the process of evolution. It lives only in the southwestern part of the South Island (New Zealand), where it hides in the dense thickets of the forest. It is there, under the roots of trees, that this parrot makes a hole for itself. He spends the whole day in it and only after sunset does he leave there to go in search of food - plants, seeds and berries.

Prior to the discovery of the South Island by European settlers, the owl parrot had no natural enemies. And since the bird had no need to escape from anyone, it simply lost the ability to fly. Today, kakapo can only plan from a small height (20-25 meters).

At the same time, owl parrots lived next door to the Maori, the indigenous inhabitants of the islands of New Zealand, who hunted them, but caught only as many birds as they could eat. Then the kakapo was a fairly numerous species, but the Maori began to cut down areas of the forest in order to grow sweet potatoes "kumara", yams and taro (the tubers of this tropical plant are eaten) on the vacant land. Thus, they unwittingly deprived the parrots of their habitat.

The number of the owl parrot gradually decreased, but the birds were in critical danger with the arrival of European settlers, who brought with them cats, dogs, ermines and rats. Adult kakapo managed to escape from new predators, but they were unable to save their eggs and chicks. As a result, by the 1950s, only 30 owl parrots remained on the island.

From that moment on, the hunting of kakapo and their export from New Zealand was completely banned. Scientists placed some individuals in nature reserves and began to collect their eggs to protect them from predators. In specially designated rooms, kakapo eggs were placed under hens, who hatched them as if they were their own. Today, a unique bird is listed in the Red Book. Its number has ceased to decrease and even began to gradually increase.

 

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