tion was used based on birds’ behavior: swimming, fly fast, catch prey with talons, etc. An early classification of birds appeared in 1676 and divided birds on the basis of both anatomy and behavior. This classification does not work, of course, because it is too simplistic and had little to do with real relationships. As centuries passed, so did classification schemes. These schemes relied more on morphology and less on behavior. Taxonomy (classification and naming) was generally a mess until Linneaus published Systema Naturae in 1753 which set down a system of classification for all organisms.
Subclass Archeornithes : Archeopteryx
Subclass Neornithes: all other birds
Subspecies, races, etc.
For example, the Rock Dove, our city pigeon, belongs to the Order Columbiformes and the Family Columbidae. The genus is Columba and the species livia. Note that both the genus and species are italicized and that the genus is capitalized. And notice that species is always species, never specie.
Columba livia- Rock Dove
Common names of birds in North America are standardized by the American Ornithologist‘s Union Checklist of North American Birds
The definition of a species is based on the ability to interbreed. This is sometimes hard to determine leading to the Scrub Jay once being called the Santa Cruz Jay, the Santa Catalina Jay, and several other variations when one name was appropriate. Western Scrub-Jay is now split into two species: the California Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma californica) and Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jay (Aphelocoma woodhouseii). Birders have long recognized that these widespread western jays come in different flavors: a darker, more rich color in California, Oregon, and southwestern Washington, and a somewhat paler, grayer type in the interior West, from Nevada east to Texas. Many field guides already illustrate them separately as “coastal form” (or “Pacific form”) and “interior form.” They do hybridize where their ranges come together in western Nevada, but studies have shown that such interbreeding is very limited. So now they will be officially recognized as separate species.
Past taxonomy has been based on morphology, behavior, habitat, nest characteristics, etc., but most recently DNA hybridization techniques have been used with probably the most accurate results of any method.
What are birds? There are about 10,000 species of birds in about 170 families with 1 to 300 birds per family. When one looks at modern forms of birds only, birds form a homogeneous and distinct group, compared to the other vertebrate classes.
Birds are characterized by:
3. Laying of eggs
4. Lack of teeth; epidermal covered bony beak.
5. Pneumatic bones.
6. Adaptations for flight (about 123 flightless)
c. centralization of weight
d. efficient metabolism
e. visual acuity
f. motor development of brain
Ornithologists are both professional and amateur, but most professionals, about 80%, work on some aspect of the ecology of birds (rather than physiology, anatomy, etc.) This is primarily because birds are so easy to study in the field and harder to keep in the lab than other vertebrates. Much of what we know about the physiology of birds is based on work on chickens, pigeons, and house sparrows.
Although much of the recent ornithological research is ecological, the emphases are in areas such as populations (movement, decline, increase), metabolism in the field, genetics, taxonomy, effects of environmental changes on birds, and the fossil record.
The set of birds in any defined area is called the avifauna. The diversity of the avifauna is dependent both the climate and vegetation structure, primarily. Tropical forests have the highest bird species diversity and the tundra and open ocean the lowest. The only place where there are no breeding birds is the center of Antarctica. In North America, excluding Mexico, there are approximately 775 breeding bird species.
The spatial distribution of birds is due to the adaptations of birds – they are adapted to particular habitats. The temporal distribution of the birds is essentially one of migration. Classically,