Orders of Birds 2 Flashcards
What order do cuckoos belong to?
Cuculiformes
Describe Cuculiformes
- slender, long-tailed
- Zygodactyl feet
- old world brood parasites
- specialize on caterpillars
What order do Nightjars belong to?
Caprimulgiformes
Describe Caprimulgiformes
- nocternal or crepuscular
- soft, cryptic plumage (brown or gray)
- often long bristles around bill
- short, weak legs and feet
- small bill with wide gape
What order to swifts and hummingbirds belong to?
Apodiformes
Describe swifts
- short bill
- broad gape
- elongated wings
- speand nearly all time in flight
Describe hummingbirds
- nectar feeders
- long bill
- narrow gape
- long and extensile tongues
- found only in New World
What order do Hoatzin belong to?
Opisthocomiformes
Describe Opisthocomiformes
- pheasant size
- swamps and wet forests of South America
- chick have claws on two wing digits
- unique digestive system, similar to ruminant
What order are Rails and Cranes part of?
Gruifrormes
Describe Gruiformes
- shared palate and skeleton features
- mostly aquatic
Describe coots and gallinules
- duck-like in shape and habitat
- coots have lobed toes
- gallinules have long toes for walking on lily pads
Describe rails
- secretive, marsh-dwelling
- laterally compressed = “skinny as a rail”
Describe cranes
- large, tall birds with long legs
- known for gutteral, staccato call that can be heard from a mile away
What order do Shorebirds belong to?
Charadriiformes
Three suborders of Charadriiformes
- Charadrii
- Lari
- Alcae
Describe Charadriiformes
- waterbirds, or derived evolutionarily from waterbirds
- united by characteristics of the skull, vertebral column, and syrinx.
Sandpipers, plovers, and relatives are part of the suborder
Charadrii
Gulls, Terns, and Skimmers are part of the suborder
Lari
Puffins, Auks, and Murres are part of the suborder
Alacae
Order Charadriiformes, Suborder Charadrii characteristics
- Shorebirds
- slender probing bills with long legs
- feet not usually webbed
- hind toe is well developed
- feedby wading in shallow water or at the edge of water and probing in the mud or sand (longer bills) or plucking items from the surface (shorter bills)
Order Charadriiformes, Suborder Lari characteristics
- long-winged
- short-legged
- web-footed
- salt-excreting gland found in orbit of eye
- hind toe small or lacking
- gulls have stout, slightly hooked bills
- terns have slender, sharply pointed bills
Order Charadriiformes, Suborder Alcae characteristics
- Stocky marine birds, usually black and white, with webbed feet
and dense, waterproof plumage. - Feet are set far back on the body, giving them a somewhat upright posture such that they resemble penguins.
- Swim rapidly underwater in pursuit of prey with their
short, paddlelike wings. - Unlike penguins, they can and do fly well.
What order do Loons belong to?
Graviiformes
Describe Gaviiformes
- diving fish eaters
- spear-shaped bills, streamlined bodies, webbed feet, tarsi laterally compressed
- legs positioned far back on body (facilitates swimming but makes walking on land difficult)
- nests are masses of aquatic vegetation built on islands or on shore
- young ride on parants’ back when small
What Order do penguins belong to?
Sphenisciformes
Describe Sphenisciformes
- Flightless, marine, diving birds found south of the equator.Bones of the wings are flattened and fused to form a flipper.
- Keel of the sternum is well-developed, since wings are still used, albeit for swimming.
- Legs are short, feet are set far back on the body, giving an upright posture.
- Plumage is dense and waterproof.
- There is a heavy layer of fat underneath the skin
What order do Tubenoses, like Albatross, belong to?
Procellariiformes
Describe Procellariiformes
- Tube-nosed seabirds with hooked bills.
- Restricted to open ocean; they nest on remote islands.
- Plumage is dense and waterproof.
- Feed from the surface of the sea.
- Glands for concentrating and excreting salt.
- Have a well-developed sense of smell to find both food and home islands.
- Most species have long, thin wings that are held stiffly for dynamic soaring.
- Range in size from the 6-inch Least Storm-Petrel to the Wandering Albatross, which has a wingspan of 12 feet
Describe apodiformes
small birds, small feet
- very good flyers
- humerus is shortened, while bones in outer portion of wing elongated
- short secondaries, long primaries
