Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Vertebrates
Vertebrates
Vertebrates
Unlike the eggs of amphibians and fish, the amniotic egg of reptiles,
birds and monotremes is internally fertilized (through sexual contact) and has
a protective outer membrane or shell that prevents it drying out.
It contains enough nutrients in the yolk to nourish the embryo.
The allantois is a sac that holds wastes until the embryo hatches, and also
provides some oxygen.
Class Aves
The Birds
Evolution of the Birds
The earliest accepted fossils of birds date back to 150 million years ago.
Recent finds of dinosaur fossils with feather-like scales suggest an
earlier evolution of birds, but this is still debated.
Archaeopteryx lithographica is the oldest confirmed bird species.
→It had several reptilian features, including claws on its wings, teeth and a
long bony tail.
Diversity in Birds
• There are 29 different orders of birds
-Only the twelve most common are described in the
textbook
The smallest bird is a Cuban hummingbird not much
larger than a bumblebee (5 cm long including tail, about 1/20
ounce or just over 1 gram)
The largest bird is an African ostrich (9 ft tall, 350 lb, or 2.7m,
160 kg) It is flightless, but a good runner.
Penguins are the fastest swimming birds (Penguins are also flightless, the BBC
video that showed flying penguins was an expensive Computer Generated
April fool’s joke)
Characteristics of Mammals
Endothermy (warm-blooded)
Skin covered in hair or fur
→in whales and humans the h
air is reduced to small patches
The Marsupials
Subclass Marsupialia (about 280 species in 8 order)
Including :
1.) Kangaroo 2.) Wallaby
3.) Tasmanian Devil 4.) Tasmanian wolf(believed extinc)
5.)Marsupial mole 6.) Koala
7.)Wombat 8.) Opossum (only native marsupal in North America)
scales
scales
diaphragm
Geological Timescale (Birds)
Dinosaur
s
Bird
s
Feathere Archeopter
dinosaur yx
s