10,000 Birds

JUNE 27, 2018

There are important details within that dictum that we will ignore here, but this has to do with knowing when a characteristic doesn’t really tell you about the relative position of species on a “tree of life” vs when the characteristic works for that purpose. Rather, cladistics is a way of looking at the process of evolution of species.

Monkeys 140

Monkeys Gorillas Whales Whaling 140

10,000 Birds

FEBRUARY 18, 2014

The vast majority of the 10,000+ living species of birds are passerines, and the vast majority of those have a similar system of breeding: Mom and dad bird make a nest and share parental responsibilities roughly equally, if not identically. There are variations on that theme, of course. Even the non-passerines often follow this pattern.

Breeders 204

Breeders Breeding Birds Groups 204

10,000 Birds

JULY 21, 2011

For instance, I can lay my hands on data for primates and rodents (because I’ve collected those data for research) but I don’t have comparable data for bovids (just selected data) and zero data for birds (in spreadsheets on my computer).

Mammals 177

Mammals Rodents Birds Reptiles 177

10,000 Birds

OCTOBER 30, 2023

The Ashy Tailorbird is a good example of the different perspectives of describing a bird – while the English name focuses on the body of the bird, the Latin species name ruficeps refers to the rufous head. The split makes the bird one of the six species endemic to Sabah, Borneo ( source ), four of which I saw during my week at Sepilok.

Woodpeckers 215

Woodpeckers Birds Eggs India 215