Some people do…and those people might enjoy Gary Kaiser’s The Inner Bird, a site that is promoting his book of the same name, and also contains interesting tidbits of information about comparative anatomy and avian evolution.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
Gary Kaiser states that birds are digitigrade while mammals are plantigrade. I know humans are certainly plantigrade, but aren’t most mammals digitigrade? Or does he simply mean that all birds are digitigrade, whereas the primitive mammalian condition is to be plantigrade, and many mammals retain this trait?
Excellent point, Sylvanite! I was rather excited by the subject matter of this site. I just hope there aren’t a whole lot of other errors like this.
I like to photograph birds, but I have to admit that my knowledge of the ‘inner bird’ is entirely unfettered by scientific knowledge. (Quackery. you could call it.)
However, can anybody point me to a place where I can identify a (possibly at least partly fake) skull? ‘Possibly fake’ because three horns – four if you count the one on the nose – seem a little excessive, so it could have been, um, intelligently designed. Unfortunately (or not) I did not buy the skull (at a flea market today), so only have the photographs for identification.
It is not a bird, and I don’t mean to hijack this comments thread. I just don’t know where else to ask where people might be likely to know.
Bah. Any monkey worth his salt would give one of those birds a beak flip!
BadAunt:
If you asked me (not a scientist by any stretch) I would say it looks like a dragon skull. and fake (obviously). but cool!
Are you really sure? I mean … couldn’t it be a REAL dragon skull?
(Damn. I was really hoping it was at least partly real.)
BadAunt, I can identify it.
$19.99, available at most Spencer’s Gifts, or seasonal Halloween stores at your local shopping mall.
i was just thinking about bird evolution last night, while running.
does anyone know what the most ‘primitive’ (in the way that a coelacanth is considered a primitive fish) bird alive today is ?
“Skull”? It doesn’t look like bone in the first place. It looks like plastic. It doesn’t even look like it was meant to be taken seriously.
First of all, please define “primitive”. That word is less and less used because it can mean anything you want.
Latimeria is special because it’s the only surviving coelacanth, and because that is a group that’s more closely related to us + the lungfish than to normal ( = ray-finned) fish.
All living birds are either paleognaths or neognaths, and the former group includes the ratites (ostriches, rheas etc.) and the tinamous. Maybe that counts.
“Skull”? It doesn’t look like bone in the first place. It looks like plastic. It doesn’t even look like it was meant to be taken seriously.
First of all, please define “primitive”. That word is less and less used because it can mean anything you want.
Latimeria is special because it’s the only surviving coelacanth, and because that is a group that’s more closely related to us + the lungfish than to normal ( = ray-finned) fish.
All living birds are either paleognaths or neognaths, and the former group includes the ratites (ostriches, rheas etc.) and the tinamous. Maybe that counts.