Quarantine entry #29 - April 19

Obligatory disclaimer: sometimes, real life sucks. Other times, it does not; it is just annoying and you just want to die and get over it. Ah well, what can you do about that? Nothing, so let us talk about quails. Pause.

Here is the thing about the quail. It is a real-life bird, actually, quite a few of bird species, but because real life sucks, the term ‘quail’ is designated for several bird genera instead. They all belong to the superfamily of Phasianoidea, but otherwise? They belong to different families – the Old World quails to Phasianidae, and the New World Quails to Odontophoridae. They differ from the grouse by preferring open spaces to woodlands, and from the ptarmigans by avoiding the north. Pause.

…That said, the quails, the grouse, the ptarmigans are very similar birds, science aside – they are game birds from the Galliformes order, which is a fairly old bird order. Remember, we mentioned the Galloanseriformes when we talked about the ratites? That is because they are about as old as the ratites/the paleognaths are and are similar to them, especially to the tinamous, which are also ratites, sort of.

Just like the tinamous, the birds in the Galliformes order are poor fliers, they do not like to fly, and they prefer to run. Their chicks hatch already ready to run and learn to feed quickly by themselves, with minimal interference from their parents.

That is actually a divisive line, because in some wildfowl, like the grouse (and the peacocks), the males do not readily involve with their chicks; the females often raise the youngsters by themselves – it is called sexual dimorphism, where the two sexes are different. (We will be getting to that later). In other species, such as the quails, (at least in the Old World species, but probably in the New World as well), both parents raise their chicks.

The difference in lifestyle raised difference in appearance – in the grouse, (and the peacocks, and the like), males and females look very different; in others, such as the quails and partridges, they do not. Pause.

Getting back to the ratites, whose chicks also are born mobile, somewhat independent and rely on their parents for some protection, but aren’t as helpless as the chicks of the songbirds, where do they fit in?

Again, they are a mixed bag. African ostriches have sexual dimorphism, though mainly in coloration, but most of the ratites – such as the cassowaries and the rheas are not physically very different, though the childcare falls mostly to the males there.

Pause. Here is the thing – with mammals and birds it’s two different things. In mammals, the pregnancies are internal, (unless the mammal is a monotreme or a marsupial, but we will talk about them some other time instead). However, in birds, they are external, once the egg is laid.

Yes, the formation of the egg is internal and male and female birds are built differently, but once an egg is laid, it still needs to be incubated and hatched, which is where the differences may come in. In birds of prey, including owls, the females are bigger and stronger because they are the primary caretakers of the youngsters. In some of the gamebirds, and also in many of the songbirds, the females are drabber than the males for the same reason. However, in other birds, where both parents care for their chicks, there are not too many physical differences between the gender – and this leads us to the buttonquails.

Now, some Old World quail species are called button quails, (i.e. two words), but the buttonquails (i.e. one word) aren’t really quails, or gamebirds, but rather members of a separate bird family – the Turnicidae – which is a part of the shorebird order, (Charadriiformes). These small birds are found in the tropics of Africa, Asia, and Australia, (including Australasia), and for a while were presumed to be either gamebirds or crane relatives. Instead, apparently, they are relatives of the shorebirds, sandpipers, plovers, woodcocks, etc., even if they do not really resemble the latter. So what is so special of them?

A complete gender reversal, that is what. The female buttonquails are much more colorful than the males are and do most of the courting when it is mating time. The males, too, take care of the youngsters by themselves, after the eggs are laid, while the female moves on to the next male. Curiously, there is a small genera of shorebirds, call the phalaropes, which have the same thing – the females are much more colorful than the males are, and are also bigger; the males are the primary caretakers of the young and eggs.

…The phalaropes are also atypical in that their lifestyle is more like ducks and geese than the other shorebirds – they do most of their feeding on open water than on the shore, unlike the other shorebirds, but we digress. Where were we?

Ah yes, the buttonquails have an odd one out – the lark buttonquail, also known as the quail-plover, which is monogamous and belongs to a separate genus from the rest of them. Clearly, the evolution of the buttonquails was not a straightforward thing as you might expect by looking at most of them…

Well, this is it for now. Real life might suck, especially for humans with COVID-19 and all, but for other lifeforms – including quails, buttonquails, shorebirds, ostriches and what else have you – may be benefiting from this; (certainly our friendly neighbourhood groundhogs seem to). We will just have to wait and see.

…This is it for now. See you all soon!

Quarantine entry #27 - April 17

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. I have no idea when it will end and we are stuck in the lockdown, and it is snowing again. What next?

Let us switch from amphibians, such as newts, to ostriches. Why? Because I have watched one of David Attenborough’s specials – ‘big birds can’t fly’ and it is about ostriches and the other ratites, so let us begin!

First, there are actually two species of ostrich – the common ostrich with its’ subspecies, and the Somali ostrich, which differs from the common ostrich in terms of coloration. (A blue neck and head, primarily). It coexists with the common ostrich, (with one of the subspecies, anyhow), but does not hybridize with them – apparently, they are that different genetically.

…This situation is not too unique to the ostriches – other birds, physically very similar to each other, do not interbreed either, for example the white and the black storks of Europe/Eurasia. Externally, they differ only in plumage color, but nevertheless, no hybrids.

Back to the ostriches. They are ratites, aka the paleognaths, aka a group of very specialized flightless birds that are only distantly related to the rest of the birds, aka the neognaths. They are other flightless birds in the modern world, but they live on islands where no land predators are present, and they have keeled sternum bones as well. Penguins, in particular, have fairly powerful wings and they can fly, only underwater, not in air. And the ratites?

Out of this superorder of birds, ostriches are the most basal slash ancient ones, followed by the rheas, (aka the South American ostriches). These birds are the biggest existing ratites, and they got big wings. They still cannot fly – too heavy, the anatomy is all wrong – but the big wings serve to impress females, to shade chicks from the sun and so on.

Speaking of South American rheas, this continent also has the tinamous. They are important, because while they belong to the ratites, they actually can fly, just not very well, and are the local ecological counterparts of pheasants and grouse from the rest of the world. (The galloanseri birds are some of the more ancient birds, alongside the ratites, but we will talk about them some other time). As such, they got added to the ratites only recently, and even that with some caveats, I think – but more on tinamous later.

Next, we got the cassowaries and the emu of Australia and Papua New Guinea. They are more advanced than their African and South American counterparts are, and have no wings. The emu is represented by a single species; the cassowaries – by three, (the fourth had died out). The emu lives in the savannah, just as the ostriches and the rheas do, while the cassowaries prefer the jungle. Pause.

Here I take a breather from taxonomy, and point out that the cassowaries are not like the extinct dinosaurs, raptor-like claws on their feet or not. Raptors were carnivores; cassowaries are not – they feed of fruit and other plant matter, and if possible, they avoid humans, who encroach on their territory, cutting it down to clear land for their own needs; most human-cassowary conflicts are human-initiated, sadly.

Finally, the living ratites also feature the kiwi birds, which are the smallest ratites of them all. Also, unlike all the other ratites, existing and extinct, rather than have long necks & legs and short bills, they got short necks, shortish legs, and long bills, with which they prove earth for their sustenance – various invertebrates. They are nocturnal, got an attitude, (just like the rest of the ratites, actually), and number five species – the most numerous modern ratite groups.

The rest of the ratites are extinct by now; of a particular interest are the moas of New Zealand, (cousins to the South American tinamous), and the elephant birds of Madagascar, (cousins to New Zealand’s kiwi birds). The moas were the tallest of the ratites, the elephant birds – the heaviest. Both of these ratite groups died out during the historical age – the moas from the New Zealand Maoris, the elephant birds – from the natives of Madagascar and the Europeans, possibly. Unlike their mainland cousins and the kiwis, they were just too specialized and tasty to survive, it seemed. The moas, in particular, had only their drumsticks slash legs eaten and the rest was given to the dogs – literally. No wonder that the moas died out, as did the elephant birds, though in the latter’s case it was more of a habitat destruction situation instead. Anything else?

Sadly, no. The modern ratites are flourishing, more or less, but many of them are in trouble, (remember the cassowaries’ issues with humans?). ‘Big birds can’t fly’ has addressed that issue, though this film was kind of a tangled mess, featuring bits and pieces of previous BBC/Attenborough productions, but I’ve still enjoyed it. Beggars cannot be choosers – cough, Comic-Con 2020 is cancelled because of COVID-19, cough.

Well, then, this is it for now. See you all soon!