Tag: bird

Evolution of Eggs

By Anupum Pant

Eggs come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colours. Birds, a major group of creatures that descended from reptiles have, for several years, continued to evolve the design of their eggs for millions of years now (not consciously, through natural selection).

Eggs could have been cube shaped. In that case they would have been very difficult to lay. Also, they would have been weakest at the centre points of a face of the cube. Hence, eggs didn’t end up being squarish.

While most eggs have evolved to, well, an egg-shape, some eggs like those of some owls are nearly spherical in shape. But oval and pointy eggs do have an advantage of sort.

Spherical eggs tend to roll easily, and if laid somewhere near a cliff, they’d roll away, never to be seen ever again. Oval eggs normally tend to roll in circles. Usually, they roll in big circles. Still dangerous for birds who perch on cliffs most of the time.

Of all the eggs, the egg of a common guillemot bird is probably the most incredible – in the sense that it has a design that doesn’t let it roll down cliffs very easily.

Common guillemots are sea birds and they normally like to perch on cliffs. To add to the danger of their precarious perching places, they usually perch on such cliffs with a huge group. Also, they don’t even make nests.

Had their eggs been shaped like those of owls, they would have easily gotten knocked by someone from that huge group of perching birds, perching on precarious cliffs. So, their eggs have evolved to survive these conditions.

This is how their eggs look like. They are very awkwardly shaped. But when it rolls, thanks to natural selection, it rolls in very small circles! They don’t fall off cliffs easily. Wonderful!

common guillemot egg

First seen at [io9]

The Amusing Kiwi Beaks

By Anupum Pant

Kiwis have a fairly long beaks, but technically they have the shortest beaks of all birds. There’s a very funny reason for that.

Kiwis can’t see too well. However they have an exceptionally good sense of smell, thanks to their nostrils which are at the tip of their beaks.

According to another research done recently, Kiwi beaks have specialized sensors at the tip which help them to sense tiny vibrations. Combining both the exceptionally good sense of smell and the ability to detect minute vibrations using their beaks, kiwis are able to find creepy crawlies moving under a layer of mud.

Now, they have long thin beaks, physically. And at the end of the beak there are nostrils.

Officially the convention to measure the beak of a bird dictates that the measurement be done from the end of the tip to the nostril. And since Kiwis have nostrils at the tip, the distance from the tip of their beaks to their nostrils is very less (negligible). That distance is also, technically, according to the convention, the length of their beaks.

So, Kiwis officially have the shortest beaks among all birds, even if they physically have fairly long beaks.

Alex The Genius Parrot – A Touching Tale

By Anupum Pant

Alex was a random African grey parrot that Irene Pepperberg, an animal cognition scientist, picked up from a pet store. She had a point to prove. There wasn’t anything different about this particular parrot. And yet, for 30 years, both the parrot and the researcher worked together for hours everyday and proved something no one had ever proved before.

Irene demonstrated that a “bird brained” creature was able to demonstrate excellent language, communication and intelligence. After the 30-year long experiment, Irene had clearly shown that it doesn’t take a primate sized brain to display intelligent behaviour – or the kind of behaviour we humans label as intelligent.

In fact she says, animals display extremely intelligent behaviour all the time in nature, it’s just that we humans have a different definition of the word intelligent.

Alex knew more than 100 english words, a couple of one liners, shapes and colours. More importantly, unlike what all the parrots usually do, Alex actually understood what he said. He displayed a remarkable ability to combine 2 different words from his vocabulary to say something meaningful. It wasn’t just repetition of sounds he did.

In these 30 years, Irene had become extremely attached to Alex, had started moving on to teach him more complex tasks and treated him like a child. But suddenly on September 6th, 2007 at the age of 31, Alex died. This event left a hole in the researcher’s heart. It made headlines the next day. Economist even published an obituary like they do for famous human deaths. It was indeed a huge loss for Irene, and science. Its last words were –

You be good, see you tomorrow. I love you.

Einstein Couldn’t Figure How the Drinking Bird Worked

By Anupum Pant

Background

DrinkingBirdThe Drinking Bird is a toy which almost every one of us has heard of. If you haven’t, may be this picture of it rings a bell. Otherwise, it is a funny looking bird-head made of felt, mounted atop a glass or plastic straw, with a little bulb at its lowest point. The whole contraption is suspended at two points, which allows it to swing smoothly like a pendulum – drinking water at regular intervals, from a glass, for ever.

The amusing thing about this little toy is that, once it starts, it keeps swinging and “drinking” for ever. Upon giving it a cursory look, it seems to be a perfect perpetual machine – a contraption that can run indefinitely without an external source of energy. In reality, it isn’t a perpetual motion machine. There is a complex physical and chemical activity going on inside the toy, which keeps the simple heat engine running forever without a battery – Something so complex to deduct, that even one of the greatest Physicist ever, Albert Einstein himself couldn’t figure out the correct mechanism that keeps it running.

Don’t worry, it isn’t as difficult to understand the mechanism.

How does it work?

Assuming you have properly understood the parts of the toy, you will notice that the little bulb at the bottom of it has a colored liquid in it. This colored liquid is a chemical called Methylene chloride – A chemical that dissolves caffeine and can be used to decaffeinate coffee, teas and colas. The special property of this chemical which makes the toy work is its extremely low boiling point. It has a high vapor pressure at room temperature.

At room temperature the vapor pressure in the tube and head is high. The fluid remains in the bulb and the bird is upright due to the weight of the fluid.

The first thing you do is, you make its head dip in water. That way, the head made of felt absorbs water. The water cools due to evaporation (like our sweat cools our body), drops the temperature of the head and the bird comes up.

While swinging in the upright position, as the head cools further, the vapor pressure at the head decreases, while the pressure at the bulb becomes relatively higher. This causes the chemical to rise up the tube and it changes the center of gravity (CG). Due to the change in CG the bird tips its head back into the water.

Absorbs water and the process starts once again. It keeps on going till the bird can no longer reach the low water level. You, then have to fill up the reservoir.

Source of energy?

There is a lot going on in the toy so it isn’t really easy to point a single source of energy. However, it is pretty clear that the bird isn’t a perpetual motion machine. Anyway, watch the insightful video now. The simple toy is indeed a beautiful thing to marvel about. [Video]

Ultimate Problem Solving by a Crow

By Anupum Pant

Background

I know I wrote about how smart crows can be a few days back, but even when I wasn’t particularly searching for amazing crow videos, I happened to stumble upon an astounding video of a crow solving some puzzle. I was so blown away by this, that I couldn’t resist sharing another crow post in under two weeks. Hold your hats because this crow, nicknamed 007 will blow them off your heads.

Side note: Want to see a chimpanzee blow your mind? Watch him do a task that more than 95% of the humans wouldn’t be able to do as well as he can do it. – [Working Memory – Chimpanzees vs. Humans]

Alex studies wild birds which he releases after 3 months of research. This one is nicknamed 007 and it is about to attempt what Alex believes is one of the most complex tests for the animal mind ever constructed. The bird is familiar with the individual objects, but this is the first time he is seeing them arranged like this.

This video comes from a BBC show called ‘Inside the Animal Mind‘ hosted by Chris Packham. [Video]

In the video, a wild crow, previously not having learnt anything about the 8-part arrangement of the puzzle, manages to solve it with ease. I would have taken some time to figure out the solution.

8-Part sequence

  1. The crow pulls out a small piece of stick from a thread.
  2. It then approaches a box containing a piece of food and figures that it would need a longer stick to get it. It moves on with the smaller stick to take a stone out of another box.
  3. Takes out another stone
  4. And one more
  5. Drops one of the three stones in a box which needs the weight of all three to release a longer stick.
  6. Drops the second.
  7. And the third. The longer stick is released. It takes the long stick.
  8. Finally, the crow uses the longer stick to pull out food from the box mentioned in second point.

How I try to believe it

Although when I say that the crow wasn’t aware of the arrangement, I mean to say that it wasn’t aware of the sequence in which the puzzle was meant to be solved. It seems as if it was trained with the individual tasks.

I’m guessing that the crow was trained for some time to complete the individual tasks separately and not in a particular sequence. The 8-part sequence was probably shown to it for the first time. I may be wrong. But, I think when the speaker says, “The bird is familiar with the individual objects“, my interpretation makes sense.

If I’m wrong, I yield and state that crows are just too intelligent and are going to take over the world in a few hundred years.

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Tiger Fish Jumps Out of Water and Catches Flying Birds

By Anupum Pant

It is normal for birds to swoop down and catch fish from water. But, since 1940s, stories about a meter-long-demonic-African-fish leaping out of water to catch birds in mid-air have been told. They were only stories; no one had seen the actual occurrence…Until now.

Recently, a video of it happening was captured by a team of researchers from North-West University in Potchefstroom, South Africa, and was posted on YouTube. As expected, the video went viral. Who wouldn’t love watching a fish-eating a bird! I put it on repeat and must have watched it 10 times already.

In the video you see a Tiger fish (Hydrocynus vittatus – literally means a ‘spotted water dog’) that lives in African fresh waters. It is one of the largest predators there and lives with a larger cousin, the Giant Tiger fish (Hydrocynus goliath). The Tiger fish can measure as much as 1 meter in length. On the other hand, giant tiger fish (not seen here) can reach up to 1.5 meters in length.

Taking shots around the South African lake in the Mapungubwe National Park, they were not really expecting to record a video in which a fish would fly out of the water and catch a swallow. Rather they were there to study migration and habitat at the lake. The team was surprised to see this. The director said:

“The whole action of jumping and catching the swallow in flight happens so incredibly quickly that after we first saw it, it took all of us a while to really fully comprehend what we had just seen.”

Given that a fish in water, or even human beings for that matter, cannot see beyond a specific window (The Underwater Optical Man-hole), this fish does an amazing job of tracking and striking a bird in mid-flight with so much precision. Cheers for that Mr. Tiger Fish.

Agreed the video isn’t clear, but it the first of its kind. Soon, I hope, we’ll see HD, NatGeo quality videos. Watch it on video here: [Video]

Cassowary – The Most Dangerous Bird on Earth

By Anupum Pant

Cassowary

Flightless like the largest bird that ever lived on earth, there is a bird which looks like a turkey-ostrich crossbreed and is significantly smaller than the former. Yet it is one of the largest birds still alive. Unpredictable and aggressive are the two words that describe it. Zoo keepers find it extremely hard to deal with it, as handling it without getting injured in the process is difficult.

Casuarius casurarius, or simply Cassowary has been named the world’s most dangerous bird in the Guinness Book of Records. Found in the rain forests of Australia and New Guinea, these shy birds can slice you into two pieces with a single fatal kick (slightly exaggerated). Despite its stellar self-defense kicks, it has been unsuccessful in protecting itself from humans. It remains on the endangered species list.

The main reason for its population decline is the clearance of its habitat. Other things that contribute to the decline are deaths from motor vehicles, dog attacks, hunters and wild pigs.

How does it kill? – 3 ways

1. It will chase you down: Cassowary can run at speeds up to 50 kph.

2. 12 cm long claws will rip you:

“The inner or second of the three toes is fitted with a long, straight, murderous nail which can sever an arm or eviscerate an abdomen with ease. There are many records of natives being killed by this bird.” – Wikipedia

3. High Jump: A Cassowary can jump up to a height 1 meter. Remember, at this point, its 12 cm claws can reach a very vulnerable point.

They aren’t demons

In case of an encounter, turn your back and It could kill you. But there is a great chance it won’t if you keep facing it.

Cassowary kicks on video:

Elephant Bird – The Heaviest Bird Ever

By Anupum Pant

Scientific Name: Aepyornis maximus

No, it isn’t about a bird with a trunk or tusks. Weighing almost half a ton, the aptly named, elephant bird of Madagascar, was the heaviest bird to have ever existed on earth.  It looked like an Ostrich on steroids and of course it was a flightless bird. The number 3 bird in this picture is an illustration of the Elephant bird (around 10 feet in height) [image]

Note: Although we say that it was the heaviest bird to have ever existed, we can only say that because we haven’t been able to find any traces of a larger bird yet.

Interestingly, it wasn’t something that belonged to the Dinosaur era. It went extinct recently, around the 17th or 18th century, probably due to humans hunting it for food. Since cameras did not exist at that time, only written accounts of its sighting have been found.

As logic dictates, a huge bird would lay huge eggs. So, with a volume of about 180 to 250 times that of a chicken egg, measuring about 1 feet in height, its eggs were the largest laid eggs ever; larger than human heads. The shells could hold around 11 liters of liquid. Its eggs were said to have fed whole families. Some of them have been preserved – Some are being auctioned and some are available in museums. National Geographic Society in Washington holds a specimen that has the skeleton of an unborn Elephant bird.