Diving bird

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Diving birds are birds which plunge into the water to catch fish or other prey.

Contents

Description

Such birds may enter the water from flight, such as pelicans, gannets and tropicbirds; or they may dive from the surface of the water, such as the diving ducks, cormorants and penguins. It is theorized that they evolved from birds already adapted for swimming that were equipped with such adaptations as lobed or webbed feet for propulsion. [1]

Foot-propelled diving birds

Some diving birds, for example the extinct Hesperornithes of the Cretaceous Period, propelled themselves with their feet. They were large, streamlined, and flightless birds with teeth for grasping slippery prey. Today, cormorants (family Phalacrocoracidae), loons (Gaviidae), and grebes (Podicipedidae) are the major groups of foot-propelled diving birds. [2]

Wing-propelled diving birds

Other diving birds are wing-propelled; penguins (Sphenisciformes), dippers ( Cinclus ), auks (Alcidae) and diving petrels (Pelecanoides). Also the extinct forms Plotopteridae and Mancallinae appears to have used their wings to propel themselves when diving. [3] [4]

Plunge-diving birds

Plunge-diving is a special form of foraging that involves a transition from air to water.[ citation needed ] Plunge-diving birds are notable for their beaks, necks, and morphing wings. Plunge-diving birds generally have a higher beak angle ratio than others. [5] Beak angle ratio is defined as the top angle divided by the side angle. When the top and side angles are similar together, high beak angle ratios result, while when the difference is greater, low beak angle ratios result. Plunge-diving birds' foraging behavior also affects the evolution of rhamphotheca and skeletal beak shape. Plunge-diving birds have narrower and thinner rhamphotheca, resulting in different beak shapes. [6]

Beak angle Beak angle.png
Beak angle

The neck of plunge-diving birds is also unique. Plunge-diving birds can dive from heights up to 45 m and reaching speed up to 24 m/s without injury. Their neck plays a big role when plunge-diving. Their neck muscle will contract during the impact process, and the tendons will apply tension to the bones as a stabilizing force during the dive. [7] This allows them to be able to plunge-dive safely, having deeper dives and thereby increasing the volume of water accessible to the birds while surprising the prey. [8] Plunge-diving birds dive less often than those who dive from the water's surface due to the mechanics of the dive. [9]

Another unique feature of plunge-diving birds are their morphing wings. The morphing wing has the ability to change the wingspan in flight and adapt to various aerodynamic requirements or flight conditions. Different shapes of a bird's wing are important in determining the flight capabilities; they can affect aerodynamic performance and maneuverability. [10] [ circular reference ] In the fully open condition, the morphing wing reaches the maximum surface area and has a 32% higher lift coefficient which to achieve high maneuverability at low speed. In the fully closed condition, the morphing wing would minimize the surface area and reduce the drag coefficient by 29.3%, from 0.027 to 0.021, to achieve high-speed flight. [11]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wing</span> Appendage used for flight

A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expressed as its lift-to-drag ratio. The lift a wing generates at a given speed and angle of attack can be one to two orders of magnitude greater than the total drag on the wing. A high lift-to-drag ratio requires a significantly smaller thrust to propel the wings through the air at sufficient lift.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Auk</span> Family of birds

An auk or alcid is a bird of the family Alcidae in the order Charadriiformes. The alcid family includes the murres, guillemots, auklets, puffins, and murrelets. The family contains 25 extant or recently extinct species that are divided into 11 genera.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Seabird</span> Birds that have adapted to life within the marine environment

Seabirds are birds that are adapted to life within the marine environment. While seabirds vary greatly in lifestyle, behaviour and physiology, they often exhibit striking convergent evolution, as the same environmental problems and feeding niches have resulted in similar adaptations. The first seabirds evolved in the Cretaceous period, and modern seabird families emerged in the Paleogene.

The beak, bill, or rostrum is an external anatomical structure found mostly in birds, but also in turtles, non-avian dinosaurs and a few mammals. A beak is used for pecking, grasping, and holding, preening, courtship, and feeding young. The terms beak and rostrum are also used to refer to a similar mouth part in some ornithischians, pterosaurs, cetaceans, dicynodonts, anuran tadpoles, monotremes, sirens, pufferfish, billfishes and cephalopods.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sulidae</span> Family of birds

The bird family Sulidae comprises the gannets and boobies. Collectively called sulids, they are medium-large coastal seabirds that plunge-dive for fish and similar prey. The 10 species in this family are often considered congeneric in older sources, placing all in the genus Sula. However, Sula and Morus (gannets) can be readily distinguished by morphological, behavioral, and DNA sequence characters. Abbott's booby (Papasula) is given its own genus, as it stands apart from both in these respects. It appears to be a distinct and ancient lineage, maybe closer to the gannets than to the true boobies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Horned puffin</span> Species of bird

The horned puffin is an auk found in the North Pacific Ocean, including the coasts of Alaska, Siberia and British Columbia. It is a pelagic seabird that feeds primarily by diving for fish. It nests in colonies, often with other auks.

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Bird flight is the primary mode of locomotion used by most bird species in which birds take off and fly. Flight assists birds with feeding, breeding, avoiding predators, and migrating.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cape gannet</span> Species of diving seabird

The Cape gannet is a large seabird of the gannet family, Sulidae.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Confuciusornithidae</span> Extinct family of dinosaurs

Confuciusornithidae is an extinct family of pygostylian avialans known from the Early Cretaceous, found in northern China. They are commonly placed as a sister group to Ornithothoraces, a group that contains all extant birds along with their closest extinct relatives. Confuciusornithidae contains four genera, possessing both shafted and non-shafted (downy) feathers. They are also noted for their distinctive pair of ribbon-like tail feathers of disputed function.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tradeoffs for locomotion in air and water</span> Comparison of swimming and flying, evolution and biophysics

Certain species of fish and birds are able to locomote in both air and water, two fluid media with very different properties. A fluid is a particular phase of matter that deforms under shear stresses and includes any type of liquid or gas. Because fluids are easily deformable and move in response to applied forces, efficiently locomoting in a fluid medium presents unique challenges. Specific morphological characteristics are therefore required in animal species that primarily depend on fluidic locomotion. Because the properties of air and water are so different, swimming and flying have very disparate morphological requirements. As a result, despite the large diversity of animals that are capable of flight or swimming, only a limited number of these species have mastered the ability to both fly and swim. These species demonstrate distinct morphological and behavioral tradeoffs associated with transitioning from air to water and water to air.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glossary of bird terms</span> Glossary of common English language terms used in the description of birds

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The physiology of underwater diving is the physiological adaptations to diving of air-breathing vertebrates that have returned to the ocean from terrestrial lineages. They are a diverse group that include sea snakes, sea turtles, the marine iguana, saltwater crocodiles, penguins, pinnipeds, cetaceans, sea otters, manatees and dugongs. All known diving vertebrates dive to feed, and the extent of the diving in terms of depth and duration are influenced by feeding strategies, but also, in some cases, with predator avoidance. Diving behaviour is inextricably linked with the physiological adaptations for diving and often the behaviour leads to an investigation of the physiology that makes the behaviour possible, so they are considered together where possible. Most diving vertebrates make relatively short shallow dives. Sea snakes, crocodiles, and marine iguanas only dive in inshore waters and seldom dive deeper than 10 meters. Some of these groups can make much deeper and longer dives. Emperor penguins regularly dive to depths of 400 to 500 meters for 4 to 5 minutes, often dive for 8 to 12 minutes, and have a maximum endurance of about 22 minutes. Elephant seals stay at sea for between 2 and 8 months and dive continuously, spending 90% of their time underwater and averaging 20 minutes per dive with less than 3 minutes at the surface between dives. Their maximum dive duration is about 2 hours and they routinely feed at depths between 300 and 600 meters, though they can exceed depths of 1,600 meters. Beaked whales have been found to routinely dive to forage at depths between 835 and 1,070 meters, and remain submerged for about 50 minutes. Their maximum recorded depth is 1,888 meters, and the maximum duration is 85 minutes.

References

  1. Jung, Sunghwan; Gerwin, John; Dove, Carla; Gart, Sean; Straker, Lorian; Croson, Matthew; Chang, Brian (2016-10-25). "How seabirds plunge-dive without injuries". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113 (43): 12006–12011. Bibcode:2016PNAS..11312006C. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608628113 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   5087068 . PMID   27702905.
  2. National Geographic (2007-08-31), Underwater Diving Bird | National Geographic , retrieved 2019-06-25
  3. "Alcidae". Alcidae Inc. Retrieved 2019-06-25.
  4. Smith, N. A.; Koeller, K. L.; Clarke, J. A.; Ksepka, D. T.; Mitchell, J. S.; Nabavizadeh, A.; Ridgley, R. C.; Witmer, L. M. (2021). "Convergent evolution in dippers (Aves, Cinclidae): The only wing-propelled diving songbirds". Anatomical Record. 305 (7): 1563–1591. doi:10.1002/ar.24820. PMC   9298897 . PMID   34813153.
  5. Sharker, Saberul; Holekamp, Sean; Mansoor, Mohammad; Fish, Frank; Truscott, Tadd (2019-08-29). "Water entry impact dynamics of diving birds". Bioinspiration & Biomimetics. 14 (5): 056013. Bibcode:2019BiBi...14e6013S. doi:10.1088/1748-3190/ab38cc. PMID   31387087. S2CID   115715804.
  6. Eliason, Chad; Straker, Lorian; Jung, Sunghwan; Hackett, Shannon (2020-05-26). "Morphological innovation and biomechanical diversity in plunge-diving birds". Evolution. 74 (7): 1514–1524. doi:10.1111/evo.14024. PMID   32452015. S2CID   218895071.
  7. Jung, Sunghwan; Gerwin, John; Dove, Carla; Gart, Sean; Straker, Lorian; Croson, Matthew; Chang, Brian (2016-10-25). "How seabirds plunge-dive without injuries". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 113 (43): 12006–12011. Bibcode:2016PNAS..11312006C. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1608628113 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   5087068 . PMID   27702905.
  8. Coudert, Yan; Grémillet, David; Ryan, Peter; Kato, Akiko; Naito, Yasuhiko; Maho, Yvon (2003-12-22). "Between air and water: the plunge dive of the Cape Gannet Morus capensis". Ibis. 146 (2): 281–290. doi:10.1111/j.1474-919x.2003.00250.x.
  9. Green, Jonathan; White, Craig; Bunce, Ashley; Frappell, Peter; Butler, Patrick (2009-11-04). "Energetic consequences of plunge diving in gannets". Endangered Species Research. 10: 269–279. doi: 10.3354/esr00223 .
  10. Bird's wing
  11. Luca, Matteo; Mintchev, Stefano; Heitz, Geremy; Noca, Flavio; Floreano, Dario (2017-02-06). "Bioinspired morphing wings for extended flight envelope and roll control of small drones". Interface Focus. 7 (1). doi: 10.1098/rsfs.2016.0092 . PMC   5206609 . PMID   28163882.