Bird Orders Flashcards
Order Gaviiformes
–Family: Gaviidae (loons)
–Key features: legs far back on body, long sleek body, long neck, sharply pointed bill, palmately webbed toes
– Common Loon (B–COLO)”
Order Podicipediformes
“–Family: Podicipedidae (grebes)
–Key features: most have chisel–like bill, lobate–webbed feet, superficially loon–like
–Western grebe, horned grebe, pied–billed grebe”
Order Procellariiformes
- (Tube–nosed Seabirds; Shearwaters, Storm–petrels & Albatrosses)
–key features: bills always hooked and nostrils extend onto bill in short tubes
–they have well–developed salt glands that that remove salt from seawater
–3 front toes are palmately webbed
Order Pelecaniformes
–Families: Pelicanidae, Phalacrocoracidae, Phaethontidae
– pelicans, cormorants, tropicbirds
– only birds with totipalmately webbed feet (all four toes webbed)
– all but tropicbirds lack exposed external nares.
Order Ciconiiformes
- (Herons, Egrets)
–Key features: long legs to wade in shallow water, middle toenail is laterally expanded in all species, generally large
–Family Ardeidae
Order Anseriformes
Family Anatidae
What are the subfamilies and their characteristics?
(swans, geese, ducks, screamers)
Family Anatidae
- Adapted to aquatic life at water’s surface
- cutting edges of bill fringed or with serrations (lamellate)
- All are palmately-webbed foot for efficient swimming, reticulate tarsus
- oil gland
–subfamily Oxyurinae: small hallux/hind toe, stiff–tailed. Includes Ruddy Ducks
–subfamily Anserinae: exclusively vegetarian diet, strongly migratory. Swans and geese.
–subfamily Anatinae: Tarsus partly scutellate for all
- -Perching ducks (long legs, long hallux, cavity nesting)
- -Dabbling ducks (metallic speculum on wing, webbed foot with unlobed hallux, landwalkers, e.g. wigeons, teals, gadwalls, mallards)
- -Diving ducks (blunt-tipped wings, no metallic speculum, hallux lobed, not good landwalkers, e.g. canvasbacks, ring-neckeds, scaups, redheads)
–subfamily Merginae: sea ducks. Serrated bills. Marine life. Includes buffleheads, scoters, goldeneyes, mergansers, harlequin duck
Order Falconiformes
(eagle, hawk, falcons)
All Falconiformes:
- sharply hooked beak w/cere (sheath)
- wings long and broad for soaring
- raptorial claws
- carnivorous
Family accipitridae: lacks tooth-like projection seen in falconidae
Falconidae: toothed projection
Order Galliformes
(Grouse, Turkey, Quail, Ptarmigan, Pheasant, etc.)
- Short thick bills for seed and plant eating
- forehead feathers extend into nasal fossae
- nostriles either feathered or horny flap
- strong legs and heavy feet
Order Gruiformes
(cranes, rails, coots)
- No crop
- outermost primary considerably shorter than next primary
- 2nd and 3rd primaries usually longest
- anterior toes never fully webbed (compared with Order Charadriiformes).
Order Charadriiformes
(Shorebirds, Gulls, plovers, sandpipers, terns, murrelet, and Allies)
- outermost primary usually as long as or longer than next primary, forming tip of wing
- primaries often considerably longer than secondaries
- front toes sometimes webbed
Order Columbiformes
(Doves & Pigeons)
- plump body with small head
- short bills with cere (sheath)
- bill constricted in middle
- nostril slits with fleshy flap
- crop milk for offspring
Order Cathartiformes
(new world vulture)
- Bald head, no feathers
- No syrinx (vocal organ)
Order Strigiformes
(owls)
Family Strigidae
- small heavily decurved bills,
- strong feet with long sharp claws, tarsus feathered
- zygodactyl toes (2 in front, 2 behind)
- large heads & eyes with facial disks that concentrate sound & increase hearing sensitivity; asymmetrical ear openings in some
- telescopic vision, eyes fixed, head turns 270 degrees
Order Caprimulgiformes
(Nighthawks, Whip–poor–will)
–Family Caprimulgidae
- often long bristles surrounding bill
- short weak legs and feet
- long pointed wings; flight strong but erratic
Order Apodiformes
(swift and hummingbirds)
–Family: Trochilidae, Apodidae
–small, weak feet, very small humerus
