Taz's Reblogs and Junk

ACTUAL fairy queen Florence Welch was greeted by the goddess in Brooklyn

Researchers have argued that pointy eggs are common to cliff-nesting birds because they roll in a circle and are less likely to tumble off an edge. Or that asymmetric eggs pack together more easily and would allow females with large clutches to incubate their broods efficiently. Or that spherical eggs are stronger and less prone to breaking, or use the least amount of shell for a given volume, which would be useful for birds that can’t get enough calcium in their diet.

“There are a lot of hypotheses, but no conclusive explanation or theory,” says Stoddard, who’s an evolutionary biologist based at Princeton University. “It was a good puzzle.”

To solve it, Stoddard teamed up with L. Mahadevan, a biophysicist at Harvard University who has studied “how leaves ripple, how tendrils coil, and how the brain folds, among other things.” He realized that all eggs could be described according to two simple characteristics—how asymmetric they are, and how elliptical they are. Measure these traits, and you can plot every bird egg on a simple graph. They did that for the eggs of 1,400 bird species, whose measurements Stoddard extracted from almost 50,000 photos. It was the resulting graph that revealed the left-field nature of chicken eggs.

It’s all a gradual series of transitional forms, and where we stick the arbitrary point of “birds start here” depends on on what you consider to be their defining traits.

Do we define them by having feathers? If we do that, then fuzzy feather-like structures actually seem to go all the way back to the common ancestor of all dinosaurs and pterosaurs – which would therefore make every single member of those groups birds too.

If you’re not into the idea of calling things like Pteranodon and Triceratops “birds”, then maybe we should go more specific and use the presence of pennaceous feathers instead. The kind with quills and barbs that we normally associate with birds’ wings.

Those are at least found only in theropod dinosaurs, except… they’ve been found in ornithomimosaurs, a group well before anything we’d usually say was a “bird”. (And they might go even further back, since there are possible quill knobs known from the carnosaur Concavenator. And then Tyrannosaurus also gets to be a bird!)

Okay, that’s still a bit weird. What about being able to fly?

That at least seems to have happened in Pennaraptora, a group of theropods that includes oviraptorosaurs, dromaeosaurs, Archaeopteryx, and everything else leading to modern birds. So we’re definitely getting much more bird-like in here.

But we don’t know exactly when flight originated. Opinions on whether Archaeopteryx could actually fly go back and forth constantly (the newest research suggests yes) – but some earlier small dromaeosaurs might also have been capable of powered flight. And there’s even the possibility that bird-like flight independently evolved multiple times in different branches of this particular family tree.

It’s a bit of a mess.

Then there’s always Archaeopteryx as the traditional option for “first bird”, but we’ve found so many other similar birdy things by now that’s it’s not actually unique anymore. Pick out any defining “bird” feature in Archie and there’s an older dinosaur with the same trait which then also has to be a bird too.

And so we end up with the most conservative option: Neornithes (or Aves), the group that contains all modern birds going back to their last common ancestor. Those are all definitely unquestionably birds, but…

…Then things like Confuciusornis and enantiornitheans and Ichthyornis don’t get to be birds. And they’re very birdy-looking. If you saw one alive you’d call it a bird.

But if we keep backtracking through the evolutionary tree along everything that still looks like a bird we just end up right back in the pennaraptoran mess again. So that’s not much help either.

A lot of paleontologists still tend to consider “birds” starting at a point just before Archaeopteryx, in a group called Avialae, but there’s also a lot of inconsistency and disagreements. Really you can pick whatever definition you personally like best and just roll with that, because there’s unlikely to be a Definite Official Bird Definition anytime soon.

This is an interesting question. The knee-jerk reaction I was taught to respond with is “NO”. The real answer us more complicated than that. To start let’s define cuddly:

That’s not super useful. Let’s try defining cuddle:

Okay, that’s better.

Thats a more clear definition I can work with. So the full question here is:

Can raptors be attractive to holding close for warmth or affection because they look soft and round?

With question unpacked this way, I would generally answer “YES”.

Now I have two conflicting answers…

So let’s argue both sides and see if that helps.

Evidence pointing to “YES”

Raptors are made if feathers and feathers are soft and warm.

Raptors can control these feathers and make themselves very round.

Raptors are inquisitive animals with deep features when viewed from the right angle.

Supporting evidence:

Supporting Evidence for “NO”

Hawks are made of talons and sharp parts

Hawks are wildlife and in no way domesticated

Hawks eat cuddly things

Hawks typically do not like being touched

Supporting evidence:

In conclusion:

By definition, hawks and other raptors are cuddly. They can be soft and round and warm and invoke the desire to touch or hold. BUT! They are the dangerous, off limits kind of cuddly. Their softness is reserved only for their own enjoyment and that of their offspring or occasionally other members of their species.

this is primarily an obnoxious ad for the enamel pin above (pre-order it here, folks!), but I’m gonna use this opportunity to compare Velociraptor to modern descendants, and see how it stacks up!

Velociraptors & cassowaries evolved hypertrophied claws for entirely different purposes - the ‘slashing, killing claw’ of the Velociraptor is a myth, but modern-day cassowaries have the Real Deal, a ice pick-like weapon on their second toe that can grow to 5 inches.

“The inner or second of the three toes is fitted with a long, straight, murderous nail which can sever an arm or eviscerate an abdomen with ease. There are many records of natives being killed by this bird” - ornithologist Ernest Thomas Gilliard

notice how the cassowary has a straight dagger, while Velociraptor has a hook? modern equivalents to Velociraptor’s hypertrophied claw are eagle talons, used for gripping prey & maneuvering in trees. because it was a terrestrial runner, Velociraptor held this tool off the ground to keep it razor-sharp, but modern birds-of-prey (given the luxury of flight) have transformed ALL their talons into the famous Velociraptor sickle claw!

tl;dr  turns out the group aves used the last 66 million years to advance their weaponry & out murder-bird their ancestors (sorry Velociraptor!)

though they can fly short distances. Seriemas prefer running from danger. they are the closest living relative to the flightless Terror Birds, which preyed upon proto-horses in the Miocene! the red-legged species is used by farmers to guard property against wild animals & human intruders & DEAR GOD you can easily see why:

Seriema feet are not used when capturing/killing prey, but the raised claw is apparently involved in intraspecies conflict, wherein two Seriemas will rear up & kick at eachother, flapping their wings to maintain balance