Time and Place: Within the last 10,000 years, in the Holocene of the Quaternary
Maleos are known entirely from the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia
Physical Description: Maleos are large landfowl, reaching 55 centimeters in length. These are large, round birds with skinny necks and odd looking heads – they have black crests on the tops of their heads that flop over the back, and little red bands at the top of their beaks. The beaks of Maleos are thick and grey, and they have primarily brown heads. Their backs are black, as are their wings and tails, but their bellies are white; and they have long, grey legs. In addition to all of this, Maleos have orange rings around their eyes that are extremely noticeable. The young tend to have black heads in addition to these features.
Diet: Maleos feed on a variety of fruits, seeds, insects, and other invertebrates.
By Stavenn, CC BY-SA 3.0
Behavior: Maleos are Megapodes, which means they are one of the only groups of dinosaurs that don’t take care of their young! Instead, Megapodes make giant mound-nests which use geothermal energy and solar-heat in order to incubate the eggs. Maleos are monogamous, mating with only one individual per season (and potentially per life, but they aren’t very well studied), and the pair builds the nest mound together, lays the eggs, and leaves. Around ten eggs are laid per year, though some may lay as many as thirty. The eggs incubate for nearly three months; when the young hatch, they rapidly lose a lot of weight, before beginning to chow down on as much food as possible and growing rapidly for the next two months. They reach sexual maturity themselves at around two years of age. They can live for up to 23 years.
By BronxZooFan, CC BY-SA 4.0
These are noisy birds, making a wide variety of calls including brays, rolls, and quacking – to the point of sounding rather surreal in some situations. They tend to spend most of their time foraging with their mate, walking around and gathering the food off of the ground. They do not migrate, but they also do move around the island each year, not sticking in one place or placing their nests in the same sites from year to year.
Ecosystem: These megapodes live primarily in lowland and hill jungle, going to the beaches for their breeding or in forest clearings with extensive amounts of sand. They usually roost in trees high off of the ground. Maleos are preyed upon by humans, pigs, monitor lizards, and crocodilians.
By Ariefrahman, CC BY-SA 4.0
Other: Maleos are endangered, with only potentially 14,000 individuals left with a rapidly declining population. The reasons for this seem to be due to human exploitation, egg hunting by humans and introduced mammalian predators, and extensive habitat loss. This is also illegal, as much of that lost habitat is protected – as are the eggs of this species, which are being collected in the thousands. Since they are a delicacy, and not a food source staple, this practice must be condemned and hopefully further regulation can help to increase Maleo populations.
TIme and Place: Since 10,000 years ago, in the Holocene of the Quaternary
Snow Mountain Quail live entirely in the Snow Mountains of Irian Jaya in New Guinea
Physical Description: Snow Mountain Quail are adorable little round birds, ranging in size from 25 to 28 centimeters in length. They have small heads and tiny, pointed beaks, with large round bodies. They do not have large tails – as you would assume from their names – but instead have a small tuft of feathers in the shape of a triangle on the ends of their bodies. They also have short, stubby feet. The males are reddish, with brown backs and brown striping on their bodies. The females are more pale, but also with brown backs and brown striping.
Diet: These quail feed mainly on flowers, leaves, seeds, foliage, and sometimes caterpillars.
By Charles Davies, in the Public Domain
Behavior: Snow Mountain Quail aren’t the most social pheasant species, usually only foraging in small groups of 2 to 3 individuals. They make small, noisy squeals when flustered, and repeated squee-ing calls when alarmed. They do not migrate, though they do move back and forth along the elevation due to predator activity. They make nests on the edge of grass tussocks, usually in September; where they lay three pale brown eggs with dark brown spots.
Ecosystem: Snow Mountain Quail are known from grassland and scrubland in the mountains, between 3100 and 3800 meter elevations. This is an extremely remote – and chilly – environment.
By Romain Risso, CC BY-SA 3.0
Other: Snow Mountain Quail are mainly near threatened due to the extremely limited and unique nature of its habitat. It is also not helped by the fact that the Indonesian Government has not granted protected status to these birds. More work is needed to protect these adorable little birds.
Time and Place: Within the last 10,000 years, in the Holocene of the Quaternary
The Blue-Winged Goose is only known from the Horn of Africa
Physical Description: Blue-Winged Geese look very similar to other geese in terms of proportions – with round bodies, short tails, and long necks. Their heads are small, as in other geese, with small triangular bills. They also look like most non-canadian geese by being softer and rounder in general angles and shape. They differ from other geese primarily in color – they have grey heads and brown bodies, but the undersides of their wings are distinctively powder-blue in color, with black and green contrasting feathers around the blue. The males have brighter colors than the females, and are in general heavier – though they range between 60 and 75 centimeters in length in both sexes. The tails of these birds are usually black. The juveniles differ from adults in being duller in color still.
By Dick Daniels, CC BY-SA 3.0
Diet: Blue-Winged Geese feed mainly on grasses, sedges, water-edge plants, and sometimes invertebrates.
Behavior: Despite being geese – and even feeding on aquatic food from time to time – Blue-Winged Geese seldom swim! Instead, they will graze along the river bank, searching for food while keeping their feet firmly planted on dry land. They also mostly do this during the night, spending their days asleep! Even though it is reluctant to both swim and fly, it is good at both, but will rarely run away from humans approaching it. They are social birds, forming flocks year-round, which are filled with high-pitched whistles and penk-penk-penk calls. They do move flocks occasionally during different seasons – and go to higher altitudes during the dry winter to breed.
By Charles J. Sharp, CC BY-SA 4.0
They begin breeding during the dry season, usually forming single pairs to build nests on the ground hidden by the vegetation. The female does most of the incubation alone, laying four to seven eggs and incubating them for about a month. The chicks hatch very fluffy and brown-black, taking around three months to fledge. They then join the flock, and become sexually mature at around two years of age. These flocks can include hundreds of geese, and are a noticeable feature in the Ethiopian landscape.
Ecosystem: Blue-Winged Geese primarily live in grassy meadows and pastures at mid to high levels of elevation, usually near rivers and lakes and pools. It will avoid entering deep water, though it will venture into waterlogged soils with dense vegetation.
By Dick Daniels, CC BY-SA 3.0
Other: Blue-Winged Geese might be common, but they have a very unfortunately restricted range – which means there are probably less than 10,000 sexually mature individuals alive today, which are specially affected by drainage and habitat conversion by local populations. Luckily, local religious beliefs prevent it being hunted, however immigrants into Ethiopia are starting to hunt the Blue-Winged Geese which is causing increased pressure on this bird. Clearly, protection is needed and increased monitoring of its population. This is especially important as Blue-Winged Geese is actually a very unique bird – it’s not a goose at all, but a duck! It is closely related to Hartlaub’s Duck, another unique African species of waterfowl, indicating an isolated clade of African waterbirds evolved similarly to waterbirds around the world. More research is needed to better understand these birds – but they must be protected so we can do so.
Referred Species: G. aesculapii, G. moldovicus, G. beremendensis, G. tamanensis, G. kudarensis, G. europaeus, G. imereticus, G. meschtscheriensis, G. georgicus, G. varius (Green Junglefowl), G. sonneratii (Grey Junglefowl), G. lafayettii (Sri Lankan Junglefowl), G. gallus (Red Junglefowl and Domesticated Chicken)
Status: Extinct – Extant, Least Concern
Time and Place: Since about 6 million years ago, in the Messinian of the Miocene through today
In the past, Junglefowl were found throughout Eurasia, especially across Europe. After the last glacial maximum, they were restricted to the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Eurasia, as well as many Pacific islands. Of course, today, domestic chickens are found all over the world. This map below shows the current range of wild Junglefowl in dark blue, and extinct Junglefowl in light blue; please note that domesticated and feral chickens are found everywhere.
Physical Description: Junglefowl are highly ornamented, beautiful, bulky birds, with the males being decorated in brilliantly iridescent feathers all over their bodies. The females tend to be more dull in color, in order to blend in with the environment; that being said, they can also have beautiful and distinct patches of brighter feathers in certain strategic places, such as the tail. The males also have combs on the tops of their heads, made out of skin and muscle, rather than feathers; they also tend to have bare red faces, and wattles underneath their chins also made of skin and muscle. Their tails tend to have long, curved ribbon feathers, colored with iridescence and usually in a blueish-greenish shade. The tails of the females are shorter and less distinctive. These birds are squat, with short legs and bulky bodies. They also have small heads and short, pointed beaks. In general, junglefowl males can range between 65 and 80 centimeters long; the females tend to be significantly smaller, ranging between 35 and 46 centimeters long.
Sri Lankan Junglefowl by Schnobby, CC BY-SA 3.0
Diet: Junglefowl are omnivorous birds, feeding on a wide variety of food such as such as insects, worms, leaves, berries, seeds, fruit, bamboo, grasses, tubers, and even small reptiles.
Grey Junglefowl by Yathin S. Krishnappa, CC BY-SA 3.0
Behavior: Junglefowl tend to forage in small groups, but they will also scratch around the ground for food alone, using their feet to release food that might be trapped under the most shallow layer of ground or leaf litter. They peck, very distinctly, at the ground – bobbing their bodies back and forth as they move around, pecking in short spurts to gather the food they look for. They are very opportunistic feeders, switching back and forth between different food sources based on what is more available in a given season. They can even associate, happily, with other birds and even mammals of all things, using the environmental disturbance they cause in order to find food.
Green Junglefowl by Francesco Veronesi, CC BY-SA 2.0
Junglefowl make some of the most distinctive calls of any bird, though of course, each language seems to have its own onomatopoeia to describe it. They make very distinctive clucks, cackling, and even cooing sounds depending on the situation. Males do make “cock-a-doodle-do” calls, though they can vary in tone and loudness, as well as the syllables involved, from species to species. These calls are actually advertising calls, made by the males, in order to attract females! The females tend to be quieter than the males, though domesticated female chickens are not quiet animals by a longshot. Junglefowl do not migrate, and tend to stay limited within their preferred habitats (though, of course, domesticated chickens have been bred to deal with a wider variety of climate better than their wild relatives.)
Red Junglefowl by Harvinder Chandigarh, CC By-SA 4.0
Junglefowl can breed throughout the year (it’s why they were domesticated), though some populations tend to favor the dry season over the wet season (primarily due to less danger with the daily weather – these guys do hail from the monsoon lands!) As a general rule, junglefowl are polygamous – males will mate with a variety of females throughout the year, with the females doing the bulk of the work in nest construction and child care (which makes sense, since they blend in so well with the environment). Some species – such as the Grey Junglefowl – do show monogamous behavior from time to time, with males sticking with one female for long periods of time. In a classic case of sexual selection, females tend to prefer males with more brilliant combs (rather than focusing on plumage color, though this could be different in non-domesticated species). The female will lay between 2 and 6 eggs (some species laying more than others) in a depression amongst dense vegetation; the female will incubate the eggs for three weeks before the chicks hatch. The chicks are extremely fluffy and cute when hatching, usually covered in soft brown feathers (though domesticated ones are more yellowish). The chicks are able to fly after one week, and males will become sexually mature sometime between 5 and 8 months. They are not the strongest fliers, usually preferring short bursts of activity rather than sustained flight.
Domesticated Chicken Chicks by Uberprutser, CC BY-SA 3.0
Extremely social birds, chickens have a very noticeable pecking order – with individual chickens dominating over others in order to have priority for food and nesting location. This pecking order is disrupted when individuals are removed from a flock; adding new chickens also causes fighting and injury until a new pecking order is established. This family structure was exploited by early humans, in order to become the “top chicken” and domesticate the species. Interestingly enough, chickens do gang up on inexperienced predators – foxes have even been killed in such encounters! Despite stereotypes to the contrary, chickens are extremely intelligent animals – studies have shown they have higher intellectual capabilities than human toddlers – they are self aware, are able to count, and do trick one another into actions (aka, they can lie and manipulate other chickens). What’s more, despite their pecking order fights, they are very affectionate and empathetic birds – prone to cuddling with other flock members, and checking in to make sure the flock is alright. They show very rapid learning ability, and are able to grasp basic number theory only after a few weeks from hatching. In addition to being logical with numbers, they can reason out many other things – including forming teams to play kickball! Bird-brain, indeed!
Red and Green Junglefowl by Francesco Veronesi, CC BY-SA 2.0
Ecosystem: Junglefowl primarily live in dense, humid rainforest and wet woodland. They can also be found in savanna, scrub habitat, coastal scrub, mountain forest, and also in human plantations and farmland (as wild species spreading into human-created habitat). They do prefer lower elevations to higher ones, as a general rule. They are fed upon by a wide variety of creatures – larger birds, predatory mammals, and large lizards and crocodilians. Of course, the biggest predator of junglefowl is probably People! Just, statistically speaking.
Sri Lankan Junglefowl by Steve Garvie, CC BY-SA 2.0
Other: Junglefowl are, thankfully, not threatened with extinction. In fact, they are extremely common birds throughout their range. Domesticated chickens even regularly go feral (ie, return to wild living despite being descended from fully domesticated populations), spreading into places far from their original range such as Latin America, Hawai’i, and Africa. There are many extinct species of Junglefowl; they used to have a much wider range into Europe, but went extinct during the last Glacial Maximum, when things got too cold for them everywhere but Southeastern Asia. They then thrived in those jungle habitats, before being domesticated by people during the Holocene.
Domesticated Chicken by Berit, CC BY 2.0
Chickens were domesticated from the Red Junglefowl sometime around 5,000 years ago in Southeastern Asia. It was probably domesticated multiple times – with hybridization occurring afterwards. It spread throughout the world, reaching Greece by the fifth century BCE, though they were in Egypt potentially one thousand years earlier (or even more!!!). They were domesticated due to their frequent laying schedule – made more so by selective breeding, of course – and easily exploitable family structure. They were domesticated to breed even more frequently, leading to an abundance of adult animals – and the females even lay unfertilized eggs, giving us another source of delicious food. They also have been bred to come in many sizes, shapes, and brilliant colors of plumage. Because of their high empathetic capacity, chickens are amazingly good pets – plus, they’re domesticated, which gives them a leg up over parrots. Docile breeds, such as silkies, are great pets for children, including children with disabilities. Chickens are so fundamental to human society, that aphorisms often feature them – and they serve as symbols on heraldry, their feathers are featured in clothing, and it’s hard to escape notice of chickens wherever we go in the world today.
Chickens are the most common bird in the entire world, being bred throughout the world and able to live in harsher climates than their original range (due to domestication and specially designed coops); there are probably over 50 billion members of the genus Gallus present on the planet today. They are so common that they are a model organism – in order to understand birds as a whole, scientists do extensive studies on chickens in order to understand avian evolution. The genes and development of chickens are probably better understood than any other living kind of dinosaur. This is of special interest to members of this blog, as chicken genes have been manipulated to give them teeth (though without enamel) and longer tails – much like their non-avian dinosaur ancestors. One study even raised chickens to walk around with plungers stuck to their butts like a bony tail – and showcased how the chickens changed their head-bobbing and walking to match the redistributed weight, which makes a decent hypothesis for how non-avian dinosaurs like Velociraptor and Tyrannosaurus were able to walk (see above)!
By Scott Reid
Species Differences: Among the living species, there are distinct differences in the coloration of the males. While the females all tend to be brown and black spotted, with some patches of red on the tails and wings in some species, the males have brilliantly different colors all over. Red Junglefowl – the wild kind – are a mid sized species, and are named accordingly for their coloration. The males tend to have reddish orange heads, with green wings and bellies; their backs and back of their wings are alls reddish, though they have brilliantly green tails. Sri Lankan Junglefowl are also reddish, but instead of having green undersides to their wings and green tails, they have blueish-grey feathers in those locations. The Sri Lankan Junglefowl is also one of the smallest living species. The Grey Junglefowl also has greyish-blue tail and wing feathers, except it has a firey orange underbelly and wing top. It has grey feathers all over its body, and orange and white and black speckles on its neck. It is the largest known species. Finally, the smallest species, the Green Junglefowl, is much more than green – it is almost a rainbow of colored feathers! Its tail is green, as is its neck; but the rump tends to be yellow, the top of the wing red, and the wattle and comb aren’t red – but purple, red, yellow, and even blue! Extinct species tend to blur the line between junglefowl and their close relatives such as Peafowl (see the oldest known species, G. aesculapii, above); but in many ways, they differ mainly by living in Europe and Western Asia, rather than Southeast Asia and India.
Time and Place: Between 23 and 16 million years ago, from the Aquitanian to the Burdigalian ages of the Miocene of the Neogene
Miortyx is known from the Batesland Formation and middle member of the Sharp’s Formation of South Dakota
Physical Description: Miortyx is the oldest known member of the American Quail, a group of small birds with similar habits (but far distance in relation) to Old World Quail. These are shy, diurnal, terrestrial birds, with generalist diets. As such, Miortyx probably resembled its modern relatives in most ways, with round bodies and tiny heads. They probably also had tiny beaks and only somewhat decent flight ability. They probably also had short, boxy wings, like other American Quail. These birds were larger than their modern relatives, making them an interesting transitional form between larger fowl (such as pheasants) that these quail evolved from, and the smaller quail we have today. Both species are known from ends of humeri, making it difficult to say more about them.
Diet: A mixture of grains, seeds, and invertebrates that it could pluck from the ground.
Behavior: Miortyx would probably have behaved similar, if not identical, to living quail, spending most of its time walking around and bobbing its head as it tried to peck up food from the ground. They probably lived in large flocks, which would rarely rely on flight to get away, instead running away in a silly and bobbing fashion. When flying, it would have been an awkward, sporadic sort of flight. They would have taken care of their young for at least some time, and the young were probably precocial.
By Scott Reid
Ecosystem: Miortyx lived across the transition of environments in South Dakota during the Early through the Middle Miocene. During this time, grasslands were starting to grow, creating the famed American plains. Still, forests were a major feature of the ecosystem. Miortyx aldeni lived in the middle ecosystem of the Sharp’s Formation, a braided river channel in an extensive forest. This forest was in the middle of a valley, with a lot of different types of trees like sycamore, poplar, alder, and ash. Here, it lived alongside other dinosaurs such as Arikarornis, an Old World Vulture (in the New World!), and the large flightless bird of prey Bathornis (a kind that convergently evolved a very similar lifestyle to the Terror Birds of the South). There were also a variety of mammals such as proto-horses, primates, marsupials, rabbits, deer, rodents, and predatory mammals.
The later Batesland formation featured the growth of grasslands into the area, though where Miortyx teres was found was still forested. This was a stream system flowing out of nearby rivers and lakes, with well-developed surrounding woodland featuring many of the same plants as the earlier area. Nearby grasslands were bleeding in, though it was still more forested than what one would see today. Here there were many other dinosaurs such as the Chachalaca Boreortalis, crakes like Ortalis, grouse Typmanuchus, ducks like Dendrochen and Querquedula, a swan Paranyroca, an Old World Vulture Palaeoborus, an owl Strix dakota, and even the swimming-flamingo Megapaleolodus. There were also countless mammals like a startling number of rodents, many kinds of hoofed mammals including horses, predatory mammals, rabbits, and hedgehogs and shrews.
Other: Miortyx is the oldest record of American Quail, making it an important find for that group’s biogeographical history.
Species Differences: M. aldeni is slightly larger than its cousin M. teres, and also older, coming from the Middle Sharp’s Formation rather than the later Batesland Formation.
Time and Place: Between 126,000 and 250 BCE, from the Tarantian of the Pleistocene through the Holocene
Chendytes is known from a variety of locations along the west coast of North America – the Palos Verdes Sand Formation, the San Pedro Sand Formation, the San Miguel Island deposits, the Daisy Cave deposits, and the Port Orford Formation, among others.
Physical Description: Chendytes was a fascinating and odd duck, about the size of living swans – so approximately 1.5 meters long in terms of its body size. They were shaped almost identically to the Hesperornithines of old – with streamlined bodies for diving and short legs for propelling their swimming, they also had small wings that were essentially useless for any activity. As such, like the dead Hesperornithines and the living grebes, it was extremely well adapted for diving, which is precisely what they spent their lives doing. Chendytes had a long neck, like modern geese, and a fairly stout body – also like living geese. It differed from living geese in having stronger legs for diving, and almost no wings at all.
Diet: Chendytes would have mainly eaten fish and other aquatic organisms as it dived through the sea.
By Apokryltaros, CC BY 2.5
Behavior: Chendytes probably spent most of its time diving and swimming through the water, in search of sources of food. It would have rarely gone on land, being ill-suited to walking, but instead done most of its business in the ocean. It would have propelled itself fast in pursuit of prey, as well as to escape predators such as sharks, whales, and even large ray-finned fish. It probably migrated to nest – with large concentrations of eggs known from the Channel Islands of California, it even seems probable that these ducks would have migrated all the way there to breed, like many other aquatic birds do today. They probably lived in very large flocks, diving and swimming about together like living penguins.
Ecosystem: The coast of North America was very similar in the past to today, but with more dramatic climate movements given the fluctuations of the Ice Age, and a different cast of living creature characters. There were giant, Sabretooth Salmon; robust and terrifying carnivorous mammals like Sabretooth Cats and Dire Coyotes; mammoths and mastodons; and a variety of interesting dinosaurs such as giant Condors, tiny Dow’s Puffins, and the bulky Californian Turkey. In short, the coast of California during the time of Chendytes would have resembled today, while still being very odd and foreign – filled with a variety of megafauna, both dinosaur and not.
By Scott Reid
Other: Interestingly enough, even though Chendytes was adapted so thoroughly for diving, it is more closely related to the dabbling ducks than to the diving ducks – indicating it was a strange evolutionary offshoot of the dabbling duck group, adapting to the rapidly changing conditions of the late Quaternary Ice Age. It probably went extinct due to a mixture of habitat loss and human hunting, as people became more common along the coast – there is an extensive record of it being hunted and exploited by humans for at least 8,000 years, one of the longest such records known. .
Time and Place: Within the last 10,000 years, in the Holocene of the Quaternary
The Koklass Pheasant is known from India and Southeast Asia
Physical Description: The Koklass Pheasant is a large bird, ranging between 52.5 to 64 centimeters in length, with the males on average larger than the females. The birds are also sexually dimorphic in terms of body color, with the males supporting large, spikey crests and distinctive striping along their sides – while the females are more mottled and brown. The males come in a variety of plumage colors – in general, they have green faces with green and black crests, and then have varieties of grey, black, white, and red bodies and necks, with black striping (or white striping if their bodies are black). The females have light brown stripes near their eyes and a variety of brown over the rest of their bodies. The juveniles tend to resemble the females until the first year of age, when the males begin getting their adult colors.
By Harry Rawat, CC BY-SA 4.0
Diet: The Koklass Pheasant eats a variety of seeds, berries, insects, and worms.
Behavior: This particular variety of pheasant is rarely seen foraging, being quite shy and flying away at the first sign of trouble, but it tends to scrape at the ground while searching for food. They especially love foraging around ferns. They form loose flocks occasionally, but primarily feed alone or in pairs in the early morning and late afternoon. They defend their territories extensively, making rhythmic “kraa-krra-kraara” calls over and over again with some variation based on home territory and individual. They also make a variety of other clucks and barks and high pitched alarm calls.
By Sheila Mary Castelino, CC BY-SA 4.0
This pheasant will call for mates at dawn starting in November and going through June. They form monogamous pairs, which nest from April to June – making a scrape in the ground under dense cover for the nest, the Koklass Pheasant then lines this scrape with twigs and leaves. They lay five to seven yellow eggs with reddish-brown marks, which are incubated for a month by the female. These birds do move downward in terms of elevation as it gets colder and the higher altitudes are more difficult to live in.
By P. Jeganathan, CC BY-SA 4.0
Ecosystem: The Koklass Pheasant lives in coniferous forest, especially in steep terrain, being associated with the HImalayan mountains; they also enjoy areas with dense bamboo. They tend to roost in the trees of these forests.
Other: The Koklass Pheasant is not endangered and is quite common throughout its very wide range, though local extinctions based on habitat loss and human hunting have been reported.
Time and Place: Numida has been known since about 2.6 million years ago, in the Piacenzian of the Pliocene of the Neogene, through today
The Helmeted Guineafowl is known from across sub-Saharan Africa
Physical Description: The Helmeted Guineafowl is an exceptionally distinctive bird, with a very round, large body, and a small but visually appealing head. They range from 53 to 63 centimeters in length, with the females slightly smaller than the males in terms of size, but otherwise identical in color. Their bodies are dark brown to black, with distinctive rows of white spots across all parts of it; they have long grey legs, with large flat feet. They have tiny heads with different colors, depending on the subspecies – the West African population has a white head, with a red wattle under the chin; the Saharan population has a blue head with a red patch on the top of the head; Reichenow’s population has red patches on the top and the bottom but also a blue head; and similar patterns can be seen on the Tufted population. All of these birds have an orange to brown crest on the top of the head, leading to its common name of Helmeted. The young start out brown and yellow striped, with a little brown patch on the top of the head; they begin to turn into a dull dark brown as teenagers, before transitioning into adult plumage.
By Roland Hunziker, CC BY-SA 2.0
Diet: The Helmeted Guineafowl is a true omnivore, feeding on a variety of seeds, tubers, bulbs, roots, berries, flowers, insects, snails, ticks, worms, and millipedes. Though they eat more plants than animals, it seems that is mainly due to relative abundance.
Behavior: The Helmeted Guineafowl is an extremely social bird, forming flocks of about 25 birds that spend all their time together – foraging and nesting; sometimes these flocks can even grow up to 100 individuals. They don’t fly often, but rather run about from place to place. They forage on the ground, scratching with their feet to dig up available food. These flocks are extremely complex, with the highest ranking males fighting to organize the flock’s daily activities, and the two highest ranking males will work together to fight off intruders into the habitat. Breeding females usually associated mainly with the high ranking males, especially the highest; leaving lower ranking males to lead the flock during this time when the higher ranking males help with rearing the chicks.
By Brian Gratwicke, CC BY 2.0
These birds begin breeding right after it rains or during the rainy season, which varies across its range. They are monogamous for the mating season only; these pairs are not maintained after the year is up. Early on in the season, even, the males will try to mate with multiple females. The nests are scrapes in the ground, made by the females and lined with grass and feathers – usually these scrapes are made in areas with long grass and hidden under brush. Six to twelve eggs are laid on successive days; sometimes more than one female will lay in a single nest, leading to up to fifty eggs. These eggs are usually yellowish to pale brown, with dark specking. The eggs are incubated by the females for about a month; the male then takes over in brooding the chicks the first two weeks after hatching. They can then fly poorly at two weeks; they fully fledge at a month; and they reach adult size after thirty weeks. The females are sexually mature at around that time. The family groups rejoin the larger flock when the chicks are about one to three months of age. Most of the chicks die, especially in cold weather.
By Snowmanradio, CC BY-SA 2.0
The Helmeted Guineafowl makes loud, cackling calls with a variety of intensities, including at roosts; they contact each other with more metallic clanking and far-carrying cheer-ing. The females will make nasal “ka-bak” calls that can increase in pitch to call to males. They don’t migrate, but rather, stay within one territory for their whole lives within their flocks. They do move to find sources of drinking water, as well as roosting sites.
Ecosystem: The Helmeted Guineafowl can be found all over the place, from the edges of forests, to the savanna, to thorn scrub, to steppe, to subdesert, to woodlands. They are especially common in the savanna. They are generally limited by the availability of drinking water and suitable nesting sites in trees and bushes. They are found occasionally in human-cultivated areas, even suburbs. They are usually found below 3000 meters high in elevation, and canbe found in very large numbers around watering holes.
By Bernard DuPont, CC BY-SA 2.0
Other: The Helmeted Guineafowl is not, on the whole, threatened; there may be up to a million of these birds all over Africa. That being said, plenty of populations are more threatened than others, especially due to hunting and egg collecting. At least a few populations are more threatened than others. They have also been introduced to the Americas, specifically to aid in controlling Lyme Disease due to their propensity for feeding on ticks. These birds are often domesticated by people and served for their meat and eggs.
Referred Species: P. ponticus, P. hungarica, P. africana
Status: Extinct
Time and Place: Between 8.7 and 3 million years ago, from the Tortonian of the Miocene through the Piacenzian of the Pliocene, all in the Neogene
Plioperdix is known from the Chikoi Formation of Buryatia & Northern Mongolia; isolated localities in Moldova and Ukraine; locations in Morocco; and the Morskaya-2 Locality in the Rostovskaya Oblast. Range shown below approximate
Physical Description: Plioperdix was a small, round partridge, similar to ones today! However, it isn’t known from a lot of fossil material; mostly parts of the feet and other limbs. It would have been a medium-sized pheasant, similar to the modern partridge and Blood Pheasant. It had a fairly curved, long legs, at least compared to other partridges. Weirdly enough, its toes were more closely packed together than those of its relatives. Overall, it was a small partridge, similar to its relatives, but still a little bit weird at the end of the day.
Diet: Like in other partridges, Plioperdix probably fed mainly on seeds and other grains.
Behavior: Though little is known about the behavior of Plioperdix, it probably would have behaved much like modern partridges – walking around slowly, bobbing its head, and moving in together in groups to find food. It probably also would have taken care of its young, and been a fairly social sort of bird.
Ecosystem: Plioperdix lived in the grasslands of Eurasia as they began to spread along the continent; in at least one environment, it lived alongside a variety of rodents, lizards, snakes, hoofed mammals, and even an extinct genus of Hyena, which would have been a major pain in the ass for Plioperdix.
Other: Plioperdix is known from a very large range in Afroeurasia and may be more of a genus of convenience than anything else.
Species Differences: P. hungarica is known from the Miocene rather than the Pliocene; P. ponticus is known from the Pliocene of Eurasia; and P. africana is known from the Pliocene of Morocco.
Time and Place: 66 million years ago, in the Maastrichtian age of the Late Cretaceous
Polarornis is known from the Lopez de Bertodano Formation of Seymour Island, Antarctica
Physical Description: Polarornis was a fairly long duck-like dinosaur, around 80 centimeters in body length, though its wingspan and tail length are unknown. It would have had a fairly long looking body, with a long head and long neck (there’s a reason it was mistaken as a loon); the length of its legs is fairly unknown, but it had a short thigh and also had strong calf muscles. It had a long, narrow, toothless beak as well. Its wings aren’t well known, and it had very dense bones, so it may have had small wing. This makes it a fascinating case of a duck that evolved to look weirdly loon-like – convergent evolution is amazing!
Diet: Polarornis probably fed mainly on fish and aquatic invertebrates, especially given how many were there in its environment!
Behavior: Polarornis seems to have been flightless or nearly so, and probably spent most of its time in the water and as a diving dinosaur. This makes it a bird very similar to modern penguins and to contemporary hesperornithines! It would have probably used its legs extensively to kick and paddle through the water in search of food. As a diving bird in the far south, it also probably would have spent a lot of time preening, to keep its feathers waterproof and able to keep in warm air to protect it from the environment.
As an Anseriform, it is likely that Polarornis would take care of its young, and live in family groups; Polarornis young grew very quickly, especially for dinosaurs at the time, which would help it in the highly seasonal climates of Antarctica at the time. but beyond that it’s difficult to say what it would have acted like, beyond “duck-like”.
By Scott Reid
Ecosystem: Polarornis lived in the Lopez de Bertodano Formation, an antarctic shorline ecosystem from right before the end-Cretaceous extinction. Though Polarornis is known from the layer right before the extinction, nothing else is known from the same layer except some invertebrates such as bivalves, gastropods, and cephalopods. This was a mild arctic coastline ecosystem, with maritime climate and the higher temperature of the planet making it warmer than it would be today, but still very chilly for Mesozoic standards. Here there were many mosses, hornworts, liverworts, ferns, clubmosses, conifers, proteas, and beech trees. Other dinosaurs known from the layer just below Polarornis – and thus may have been around with Polarornis, we can’t entirely rule it out – includes the ornithopod Morrosaurus, the Anseriform Conflicto, and another Vegaviid Vegavis – in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Polarornis was the descendant of Vegaviis! There was also the Elasmosaurid Aristonectes and the Mosasaurid Kaikaifilu, which may have fed upon Polarornis. The Lopez de Bertodano Formation is thus a beautiful snapshot of the evolution of avian dinosaurs right up to the extinction of their nonavian relatives.
Other: Polarornis was originally thought to be a loon, and only recent studies have indicated that it belongs with animals like Vegavis and Australornis, in an early family of duck-forms from across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. Polarornis, amongst others, were some of the handful of dinosaurs able to survive the asteroid impact, giving us all the birds we have today!
A Dinosaur A Day 