Bird

Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrate animals constituting the class Aves, characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. They live worldwide and range in size from the 5.5 cm (2.2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species of birds, classified in 44 orders. More than half of the world's bird species are passerine or "perching" birds. Nearly all birds have wings whose development varies according to the life style of each species. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Birds are the only extant members of Dinosauria, and are a type of paravian theropods. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have further evolved for swimming. The study of birds is called ornithology. Birds evolved from earlier theropods, and thus constitute the only known living dinosaurs. Whilst traditional Linnaean taxonomy placed birds in their own class (owing to their unique morphology and being the only group of animals other than mammals where all its species are warm-blooded), birds are considered reptiles in the modern cladistic sense of the term. Their closest living relatives are the crocodilians, with which they form a clade known as archosaurs. Birds are descendants of the primitive avialans (whose members include Archaeopteryx) which first appeared during the Late Jurassic. According to some estimates, modern birds (Neornithes) evolved in the Late Cretaceous or...