4. Why are there so few herbivorous birds? (4 pts)

Plant material has a very low energy content, most birds can’t eat enough to fuel their high metabolic rate and still be able to fly.

5. Give a TWO word definition of birds. (2 pts)

Feathered animal/vertebrate

6. True or false: (5 pts)

_f__ Feather tracts are referred to as “apteriae.”

_f__ Because they are “dead” and not connected to birds’ bodies via any circulatory pathway, once a bird molts in a set of feathers, it can only change the color or pattern of its plumage by molting.

_f__ Primary flight feathers are referred to as retrices.

_f__ Secondary flight feathers come off the radius in a bird’s forelimb.

_t__ The Falconidae have a unique sequence of molting their primaries that supports the monophyly of the family.

7. (8 pts) List 8 functions of feathers:

              aerodynamics

                         insulation

                         communication & camouflage

                         sound production

                         hearing

                         protection

                         water repellency

                         water transport

                         tactile sensation

                         protection (cassoaries have “brush pants”)

                         support

9. (4 pts) Why does Cracraft think many modern birds evolved in the Cretaceous?

He believes many species now distributed across the southern continents share common ancestors and so must have evolved when those continents were united as a single land mass, Gondwanaland, back in the Cretaceous

10. (6 pts) a) What is the definition of a biological species?

A population or group of populations that are actually or potentially interbreeding.

            b) How does this differ from the phylogenetic species concept

The PSC emphasizes geographical separation and apparent evolutionary divergence over the hypothetical ability of distantly separated populations to interbreed.

11. (5 pts) Identify the feathers or feather structures indicated below.

Aftershaft, Rachis, Quill or Calamus, Vane, down feather.

 (5 pts) Give an example of a vicariant event and explain how it can lead to speciation.

A population colonizes an island, or is separated by a river, mountain range, glacier, etc. Under different environmental conditions, the two populations accumulate genetic differences, eventually rendering them so distinct that interbreeding eventually becomes impossible, or at least leads to offspring that are inferior to those resulting from matings within the two populations.

13.  Fill in the blank in front of each mini-biography with the appropriate letter from the list of names. (6 pts)

A.  Carolus Linnaeus  1707-1778     
B.  John James Audubon  1785-1851
C.  Rachel Carson  1907-1964
D.  Alexander Wilson  1766-1813   
E.  Margaret Morse Nice  1883-1974     
F.  Ernst Mayr  1904 -   

_Linneaus____The father of biological taxonomy.  A Swedish professor of botany and medicine at Uppsala University, developed the hierarchical taxonomic system used today.

_Nice____The most important woman in the history of North American ornithology, most well-known for her studies of territoriality and population dynamics in a color-banded population of Song Sparrows.

_Wilson____One of the fathers (scientific) of N.A. ornithology.  Produced American Ornithology; or, the Natural History of the Birds of the United States.  His observations and taxonomic work proved more lasting than Audubon's.

_Audubon____Son of a sea captain, born in Haiti, trained as an artist in France and came to the U.S. in 1803.  The artistic father of American ornithology.

_Mayr____German, started studying birds in South Pacific, written influentially on Animal Species and Evolution, preeminent in the “Neodarwinian evolutionary synthesis.”

14. (3 pts). Besides problems of infertility, what other mechanisms can prevent successful hybridization of recently evolved species when they are brought back into sympatry?

Differences in mating behavior (timing, courtship, etc), or habitat 

15. (3 pts) Which of the following situations is likely to lead to a small effective population size?:

_y___Philopatric species

_y___Lekking species

_y___Colonial species nesting along coastlines

16. (4 pts) Why are (or were) there so many “weird” birds on New Zealand—flightless, nocturnal, burrowing parrots, 500 kg. moas, kiwis, etc?

There were no mammals so a broad array of ecological niches was available.

17. (4 pts) Name two of the features of the Archaeopteryx lithographica fossil that lead Feduccia to believe that the creature was an arboreal glider rather than a cursorial predator.

Long front limbs, presence of hind toe (halux), sharply decurved claws

18. (4 pts) True or false:

_f_The first complete fossil of Archaeopteryx lithographica was discovered in a German quarry in 1878. =1858

_f_The fossil was found in late Triassic strata and dated at about 150 mybp. =Jurassic

_f_Asymmetrical primary feathers and a strong bony keel on the sternum indicate that the animal was capable of flight. –no keel on the sternum

_f_The lack of teeth suggest that this weight-saving adaptation evolved early in avian evolution. –it had teeth

19. (3 pts) What are three forces that act on a bird in flight?

Gravity, lift, drag, thrust (or propulsion)

20. (3 pts) Why is it said that Darwin was lucky to have landed on the Galapagos rather than the Hawaiian Islands?  

The Hawaiian honeycreepers had been on Hawaii much longer than the Galapagos finches, so their adaptive radiation had led to forms so distinct that Darwin would have been unlikely to conclude that they had all evolved from a common ancestor. 

21. (4 pts) Two theoretical models have been proposed to explain stable hybrid zones. Briefly outline them.

Offspring are not particularly fit, but are replaced by constant immigration from either side of the hybrid zone. Or, the hybrid zone is intermediate between the ecological conditions on either side of it, and the young produced by hybrids of the populations on either side are similarly intermediate and therefore adapted to the “hybrid” ecological conditions.

22. (4pts) a) Perching birds are divided into oscines and suboscines.  Differences in what structure are the basis for separating these two suborders?

            The syyinx.

            b) How do the two suboders differ in song learning?

            The songs of suboscines are innate, while those of the oscines are learned. 

23. (4 pts) True or false:

__f__Differences in developmental fusion of the wrist bones distinguish the “opposite” (Enantiornithine) birds from modern birds. = ankle bones

__f__Archaeopteryx litographica is a common ancestor of the modern birds. = It was off on an evolutionary dead-end

__f__The Enantiornithines survived the K-T comet induced extinction event and slowly died out in the mid-Tertiary.=Nope, they left the stage along with the dinos.

24. (4 pts) a)  About how many species of birds are known to exist today?

9500-1000

            b) About how many species do we believe have ever existed?

100,000

            c) Why is the answer to (b) so much higher than (a)?

extinctions and phyletic evolution—older species may be direct descendants of a lineage that paleontologists would classify as several distinct species, separated from each other by time, not space or ecological niche

            d) In 1900 we thought there were about twice as many species of birds as we now recognize? Where did the “missing” species go?

A very small number of extinctions, most were “lumped” with other species—males and females with dramatically different plumages, etc.

25. (2 pts) What adaptive radiation in non-avian organisms in the Miocene is thought to have permitted the explosive radiation of the Passeriformes?

Flowering plants

26. (no points) True of false: David Attenborough, narrator or the “Life of Birds,” has more frequent flier miles than a Wandering Albatross. __T!___ How many birds do you know that have frequent flier programs?

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