Dromaius Novaehollandiae) Is the Largest Emu Bird Native to Australia and the Only Extant Member of the Genus Dromaius
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This project was given to me by my Biology teacher Mr. Manoj Shankar Sir. To work on this project was a fascinating job for me. He always gives us such a informative and useful projects which will always help us in future. I am thankful to my sir for giving me this project and my uncle Arvind Jee and brother Kavish who co-operated with me to complete this project. I also appreciate the worth of website “Wikipedia” which provided me all the information. At last, I would like to give the credit of this whole work to my Computer without which it was impossible for me to complete this project. Birds (class Aves) are winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals. There are around 10,000 living species, making them the most varied of tetrapod vertebrates. They inhabit ecosystems across the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic. Extant birds range in size from the 5 cm (2 in) Bee Hummingbird to the 2.75 m (9 ft) Ostrich. The fossil record indicates that birds evolved from theropod dinosaurs during the Jurassic period, around 150–200 Ma (million years ago), and the earliest known bird is the Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx, c 150–145 Ma. Most paleontologists regard birds as the only clade of dinosaurs to have survived the Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event approximately 65.5 Ma. Modern birds are characterised by feathers, a beak with no teeth, the laying of hard- shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a lightweight but strong skeleton. All living species of birds have wings - the now extinct flightless Moa of New Zealand were the only exceptions. Wings are evolved forelimbs, and most bird species can fly, with some exceptions including ratites, penguins, and a number of diverse endemic island species. Birds also have unique digestive and respiratory systems that are highly adapted for flight. Some birds, especially corvids and parrots, are among the most intelligent animal species; a number of bird species have been observed manufacturing and using tools, and many social species exhibit cultural transmission of knowledge across generations. Many species undertake long distance annual migrations, and many more perform shorter irregular movements. Birds are social; they communicate using visual signals and through calls and songs, and participate in social behaviours including cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking, and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially monogamous, usually for one breeding season at a time, sometimes for years, but rarely for life. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous ("many females") or, rarely, polyandrous ("many males"). Eggs are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Many species are of economic importance, mostly as sources of food acquired through hunting or farming. Some species, particularly songbirds and parrots, are popular as pets. Other uses include the harvesting of guano (droppings) for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure prominently in all aspects of human culture from religion to poetry to popular music. About 120–130 species have become extinct as a result of human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Currently about 1,200 species of birds are threatened with extinction by human activities, though efforts are underway to protect them. Live Picture of Peafowl Peafowl In Nature Peafowl (peacock) The term peafowl can refer to the two species of bird in the genus Pavo of the pheasant family, Phasianidae. The African Congo Peafowl is placed in its own genus Afropavo and is not dealt with here. Peafowl are best known for the male's extravagant tail, which it displays as part of courtship. The male is called a peacock, and the female a peahen. The female peafowl is brown or toned grey and brown. Its young is An Indian Blue Peacock (rear) courts a peahen (front). called a peachick. The two species are: Indian Peafowl, Pavo cristatus Scientific classification (Asiatic) Kingdom: Animalia Green Peafowl, Pavo muticus (Asiatic) Phylum: Chordata The Indian Peafowl is a resident Class: Aves breeder in the Indian subcontinent. The peacock is designated as the national Order: Galliformes bird of India and the provincial bird of the Punjab (India). Family: Phasianidae The IUCN lists the Green Peafowl as Genus: Pavo Linnaeus, 1758 vulnerable to extinction due to hunting and a reduction in extent and quality of Species habitat. Pavo cristatus - Scientific Name Of Indian Peafowl Pavo muticus – Scientific Name of Javan Plumage Peafowl The male (peacock) Indian Peafowl has iridescent blue-green or green colored plumage. Both species have a crest atop the head. The female (peahen) Indian Peafowl has a mixture of dull green, brown, and grey in her plumage. She lacks the long upper tail coverts of the male but has a crest. The female can also display her plumage to ward off female competition or danger to her young. The Green Peafowl is different in appearance from the Indian Peafowl. The male has green and gold plumage and has an erect crest. The wings are black with sheen of blue. Unlike the Indian Peafowl, the Green Peahen is very similar to the male, only having shorter upper tail coverts and less iridescence. It is very hard to tell a juvenile male from an adult female. They are oftenly patterned with blue, black, red, yellow, white or iridescent colours. The Green Peafowl breeds from Burma east to Java. Many of the brilliant colours of the peacock plumage are due to an optical interference phenomenon, Bragg reflection, based on (nearly) periodic nanostructures found in the barbules (fiber-like components) of the feathers. Different colours correspond to different length scales of the periodic structures. For brown feathers, a mixture of red and blue is required: one colour is created by the periodic structure, and the other is a created by a Fabry–Pérot interference peak from reflections off the outermost and innermost boundaries of the periodic structure. Many colour mutations exist through selective breeding, such as the leucistic White Peafowl and the Black-Shouldered Peafowl. Size Length of a peafowl is generally between 110 cm to 120 cm, excluding trains of display feathers. The so-called "tail" of the peacock, also termed the "train," is not the tail quill feathers but highly elongated upper tail coverts. Diet Peafowl are omnivorous and eat most plant parts, flower petals, seed heads, insects and other arthropods, reptiles, and amphibians. In common with other members of the Galliformes, males possess metatarsal spurs or "thorns" used primarily during intraspecific fights. Behaviour The peafowl are forest birds that nest on the ground but roost in trees. They are terrestrial feeders. Both species of Peafowl are believed to be polygamous. However, it has been suggested that "females" entering a male Green Peafowl's territory are really his own juvenile or subadult young (K. B. Woods in litt. 2000) and that Green Peafowl are really monogamous in the wild. The male peacock flares out its feathers when it is trying to get the female's attention. Those who subscribe to this notion cite the similarities between the sexes. During mating season they will often emit a very loud high pitched cry. Cultural significance In 1956, John J. Graham created an abstraction of an eleven-feathered peacock logo to indicate richness in color. This brightly hued peacock was adopted due to the increase in color programming. NBC's first color broadcasts showed only a still frame of the colorful peacock. The emblem made its first on-air appearance on May 22, 1956. The current NBC logo that debuted in 1986 has six feathers (yellow, orange, red, purple, blue, green). Feral Populations Peafowl have left captivity and developed permanent, free-roaming populations in several parts of the world including India. Live Picture of crow Crow In Nature The true crows are large passerine birds that form Crow the genus Corvus in the family Corvidae. Ranging in size from the relatively small pigeon-sized jackdaws (Eurasian and Daurian) to the Common Raven of the Holarctic region and Thick-billed Raven of the highlands of Ethiopia. They weighs from 80 gms to 1500 gms. The members of this genus occur on all temperate continents (except South America) and several offshore and oceanic islands (including Hooded Crow (Corvus cornix) Hawaii). They are found almost everywhere from deserts to woods and also in towns and villages.The Scientific classification crow is a year round species. The crow genus makes up a third of the species in the Corvidae family. Kingdom: Animalia Other corvids include rooks and jays. Crows appear Phylum: Chordata to have evolved in Asia from the corvid stock, which had evolved in Australia. A group of crows is called Class: Aves a flock or a murder. Order: Passeriformes Systematics Family: Corvidae The genus was originally described by Linnaeus in Corvus . Genus: his 18th century work Systema Naturae The name is Linnaeus, 1758 derived from the Latin corvus meaning "raven". The type species is the Common Raven (Corvus corax); Species others named in the same work include the Carrion See text. Crow (C. corone), the Hooded Crow (C. cornix), the Rook (C. frugilegus), and the Jackdaw (C. monedula). The fossil record of crows is rather dense in Europe, but the relationship among most prehistoric species is not clear. Jackdaw-, crow- and raven-sized forms seem to have existed since long ago and crows were regularly hunted by humans up to the Iron Age, documenting the evolution of the modern taxa. American crows are not as well-documented. A surprisingly high number of species have become extinct after human colonization, especially of island groups such as New Zealand, Hawaii and Greenland.