Explain How The Structural Adaptions Of The Bill Of Birds
THE STRUCTURAL ADAPTATIONS OF THE BIRD’S BILLS
A standard of traits or characteristics is observed in different animals in a same specie, or in different species, some of these characteristics are predominant according the place, or habitat where this species live; the characteristic of their predators; the kind of food they usually eat, also the whether of their habitat.
For this essay I chose to study the bill of birds and, by comparison, the bill of the platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus).
Firstly, consider the different bills of the birds.
The first group of birds consists of birds that feed on seeds; the characteristic of this first group is a triangular-shaped bill; which allow them to have an incredible power to crack the seeds. The
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According to nature works: “Structural adaptations are physical features of an organism like the bill on a bird or the fur on a bear” …show more content…
The history of its discover is interesting and funny. The first scientists to examine this specie, believed that they were victims of a joke. They find for food under water, their bill is sensitive, which allows they to use it as a tool for locating and mechanically digesting food, touch and electro receptors on the bill enable they to navigate the water without the use of its eyes or ears; they are mammals and bottom feeder, eating insects, larvae, shellfish, and worms; an important point to highlight is that they do not have teeth (National Geographic, n. d.).
HOMOLOGOUS AND ANALOGOUS TRAITS / CONVERGENT AND DIVERGENT EVOLUTION
Evolutionary theories explain that the structural adaptation of the bill of birds is an example of homologous traits; traits inherited by two different organisms from a common ancestor (British Ornithologists' Union, 1904, p. 652), differently of the analogy traits which consists of similarities of convergent evolution, not from common ancestry (Understanding Evolution, n. d.).
In our example between the birds and the Platypus, we have an example of a divergent evolution, when a species diverges over time into two different species, resulting in a species becoming less like the original one, differently of convergent evolution, when unrelated organisms evolve similarities when adapting to similar environments (rbssbiology,
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