Avian Body Size and Underwater Locomotion in the Mesozoic PDF Download

Author: Sanja Hinić-Frlog
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 398

View

Book Description

Author: John B. Dunning, Jr.
Publisher: CRC Press
ISBN: 9780849342585
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 384

View

Book Description
Body mass, or weight, is the most useful descriptive measure of relative body size in birds. Masses are usually reported in avian studies of comparative ecology, physiology, breeding biology, and zoology. In addition, adult body mass is a vital statistic for studies of allometric relationships, growth and development, flight, and biometrics. The data in this handbook was compiled to provide a ready reference source for body masses of most of the world's species of birds. Masses of over 5,800 species are presented, representing about 65% of the known birds. Information for each species includes, when available, the mean, standard deviation, range, sample size, collecting locale and season, and original source. Separate means are presented for males and females in sexually dimorphic species. This handbook should greatly improve the ability of avian researchers to quickly locate body masses for most bird species and incorporate this data into research. Airplane design engineers and airport management professionals can also use these data to calculate the damage done by various species of birds when they hit aircraft. Avid birders, members of birding organizations, and bird banders will also find the book useful for their activities.

Author: Jingmai Kathleen O’Connor
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
ISBN: 2889713024
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 195

View

Book Description

Author: Nicholas Chan
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Birds
Languages : en
Pages : 169

View

Book Description

Author: Gary W. Kaiser
Publisher: UBC Press
ISBN: 0774859814
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

View

Book Description
Birds are among the most successful vertebrates on Earth. An important part of our natural environment and deeply embedded in our culture, birds are studied by more professional ornithologists and enjoyed by more amateur enthusiasts than ever before. However, both amateurs and professionals typically focus on birds' behaviour and appearance and only superficially understand the characteristics that make birds so unique. The Inner Bird introduces readers to the avian skeleton, then moves beyond anatomy to discuss the relationships between birds and dinosaurs and other early ancestors. Gary Kaiser examines the challenges scientists face in understanding avian evolution - even recent advances in biomolecular genetics have failed to provide a clear evolutionary story. Using examples from recently discovered fossils of birds and near-birds, Kaiser describes an avian history based on the gradual abandonment of dinosaur-like characteristics, and the related acquisition of avian characteristics such as sophisticated flight techniques and the production of large eggs. Such developments have enabled modern birds to invade the oceans and to exploit habitats that excluded dinosaurs for millions of years. While ornithology is a complex discipline that draws on many fields, it is nevertheless burdened with obsolete assumptions and archaic terminology. The Inner Bird offers modern interpretations for some of those ideas and links them to more current research. It should help anyone interested in birds to bridge the gap between long-dead fossils and the challenges faced by living species.

Author: Kenneth P. Dial
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022626839X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 435

View

Book Description
How did flying birds evolve from running dinosaurs, terrestrial trotting tetrapods evolve from swimming fish, and whales return to swim in the sea? These are some of the great transformations in the 500-million-year history of vertebrate life. And with the aid of new techniques and approaches across a range of fields—work spanning multiple levels of biological organization from DNA sequences to organs and the physiology and ecology of whole organisms—we are now beginning to unravel the confounding evolutionary mysteries contained in the structure, genes, and fossil record of every living species. This book gathers a diverse team of renowned scientists to capture the excitement of these new discoveries in a collection that is both accessible to students and an important contribution to the future of its field. Marshaling a range of disciplines—from paleobiology to phylogenetics, developmental biology, ecology, and evolutionary biology—the contributors attack particular transformations in the head and neck, trunk, appendages such as fins and limbs, and the whole body, as well as offer synthetic perspectives. Illustrated throughout, Great Transformations in Vertebrate Evolution not only reveals the true origins of whales with legs, fish with elbows, wrists, and necks, and feathered dinosaurs, but also the relevance to our lives today of these extraordinary narratives of change.

Author: Hermann Ehrlich
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9400757301
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 439

View

Book Description
This is the second monograph by the author on biological materials of marine origin. The initial book is dedicated to the biological materials of marine invertebrates. This work is a source of modern knowledge on biomineralization, biomimetics and materials science with respect to marine vertebrates. For the first time in scientific literature the author gives the most coherent analysis of the nature, origin and evolution of biocomposites and biopolymers isolated from and observed in the broad variety of marine vertebrate organisms (fish, reptilian, birds and mammals) and within their unique hierarchically organized structural formations. There is a wealth of new and newly synthesized information, including dozens of previously unpublished images of unique marine creatures including extinct, extant and living taxa and their biocomposite-based structures from nano- to micro – and macroscale. This monograph reviews the most relevant advances in the marine biological materials research field, pointing out several approaches being introduced and explored by distinct modern laboratories.

Author: Philip J. Currie
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253343734
Category : Birds
Languages : en
Pages : 404

View

Book Description
The setting -- Osteology and Ichnology -- Eggs, nests, feathers, and flight.

Author: Zerina Johanson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107179440
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 283

View

Book Description
World-class palaeontologists and biologists summarise the state-of-the-art on fish evolution and development.

Author: Alan H. Brush
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521248570
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 598

View

Book Description
Collects together a series of essays and commentaries by leading authorities about active areas of research on the biology of birds.