article thumbnail

The complete guide to Dodo relatives, living and dead

10,000 Birds

One of these clades holds a diversity of Old World species in several distinct groups, including an Australasian clade, the green-pigeons, the emerald- and wood-doves, the imperial-pigeons and fruit-doves (favorites of mine), and the subjects of our investigation today, the 15 known members of the Raphini. I also find this model compelling.

article thumbnail

A Question of Migration

10,000 Birds

Birds, because they fly, don’t store fat without paying a huge cost, which might in turn make them more vulnerable to variations in both food supply and thermal stress than ground dwelling animals. A fascinating exception to this, of course, are penguins. Did birds repeatedly evolve migration because they can?

Research 191