These are amazing birds from head to tail. How many cervical vertebrae does a giraffe have? This and other facts about the giraffe How many cervical vertebrae does a sparrow have?

Ask anyone which animal is the tallest of all living on the planet. The answer will be clear: giraffe! What do we know about him, except that he has a beautiful color, moist eyes and a long neck? In this article we will tell you a few facts about this animal - you will find out how many cervical vertebrae a giraffe has, how tall it is, how much it weighs and much more interesting things.

Spotted rarity

Let's start with the fact that at the moment giraffes are listed in the Red Book - there are very few of these animals left in nature. The thing is that giraffes are very peaceful, absolutely non-aggressive animals. Even 200 years ago, they were actively hunted, not only for skins and meat, but also for fun. Currently, giraffes are not killed, but this species is gradually disappearing as a result of landscape changes.

Uniqueness is in the neck!

Despite how many cervical vertebrae a giraffe has (due to which this animal is actually not so different from all other representatives of the fauna), they are not always able to recognize danger in time, much less run away from it. In addition, a running giraffe is a rare and very comical sight, reminiscent of a slow gallop.

Just imagine: the height of this animal sometimes reaches 6 meters, and almost half is its neck. How much does a giraffe have? Ten, twenty? The reader will be surprised, but there are seven of them! That is, exactly the same as all other animals. Why is this savanna resident’s neck so long, if it’s not at all about how many cervical vertebrae a giraffe has? The thing is that his cervical vertebrae are unusually elongated. It is because of this that the giraffe's neck bends poorly. Also, due to their long necks, giraffes are forced to breathe very often - about 20 breaths per minute. For example, we humans take only 15 breaths in the same period of time.

The weight of an adult male giraffe can reach 800 kilograms. His heart is very powerful. Of course, he has to pump the blood of such a tall creature up his long neck. No wonder it weighs about 11 kilograms!

And I don’t care about the thorns!

Giraffes are big gluttons! Chewing greens, especially acacia, is their favorite pastime. Most likely, this is due to the long neck of the giraffe, through which food takes a long time to reach the esophagus. At the same time, the giraffe’s mouth is unique - it is surrounded by a dense stratum corneum, and its saliva is very viscous. This way, giraffes eat thorns painlessly without the risk of injury.

And if the answer is “Seven!” to the question: “How many cervical vertebrae are there in a giraffe’s spine?” - in principle we expect, the length of the tongue of this long-necked animal is a real shock! He has it - as much as 46 centimeters!

Giraffes sleep standing up and very little - only about 10 minutes a day. Apparently, they manage to doze off while they slowly chew their food.

These inhabitants of the savannah live in small groups of 10-15 individuals. At the same time, they are incredibly “talkative”, however, the human ear is not able to recognize these sounds, since giraffes communicate in the infrasonic range.

Despite the diversity of species, all birds have much in common. The bird cannot be confused with an animal, fish or reptiles. What are the characteristics of birds? In birds, the forelimbs became wings. Regardless of whether the wing is well developed and allows flight, the fingers in it have fused and lost mobility, and a skin membrane has appeared between the shoulder and forearm.

There are also winged mammals - bats, but their wings are structured differently: the flight membrane is based on long, movable fingers (Fig. 2). Insects have wings without a bone base.

The transformation of the forelimb into a wing led to other anatomical changes in birds. To fly, you cannot have a heavy skeleton (Fig. 3). Indeed, although the bones of birds are strong, they are very thin and light. Long tubular bones are filled not with bone marrow, but with air.

Birds have a small, lightweight head. A heavy head would interfere with flight, changing the center of gravity of the body. In addition, with a large head, strong development of the neck muscles would be necessary. (Let us remember how powerful the neck is, for example, of a bull.). Lightening the weight of the head was facilitated by the disappearance of teeth in modern birds.

Since the forelimbs, having become wings, lost their role as food-grasping organs, this function passed to the beak (Fig. 4). The head of birds is very mobile, this is due to the great mobility of the neck. All mammals, be it a giraffe or a pig, have seven cervical vertebrae. In birds, their number ranges from 11 to 23. The first cervical vertebra is articulated with the skull movably, thanks to which many birds can turn their heads 180°, and owls even 270°.

The development of wings caused the bird to walk on its hind limbs (Fig. 5). The legs are especially developed in running birds and in many of them they have great strength. For example, an ostrich can kill a bream with a kick.

The bird skeleton is characterized by low mobility of the body bones. Her dorsal vertebrae were completely lost, and her lumbar and sacral vertebrae had fused into one bone. The pelvic bones also fused together. There are very few vertebrae in the tail. Birds have a highly developed chest bone; it has a keel, to which powerful pectoral muscles are attached, which ensure the operation of the wings.

The body coverings of birds are arranged in a unique way. Their skin is thin and has no sweat glands.

To avoid freezing high above the ground or in cold weather, birds must have reliable body coverings. This feather and down are thin, light, horny skin formations with a plentiful layer of air, creating low thermal conductivity.

Of all living creatures, only birds have feathers, which is why they are called feathered.

A feather is much more complex than the scales of reptiles. Its base is a hollow rod growing from the feather sheath of the skin. Almost in the same plane, to the right and left of the shaft, there are feather barbs, linked by transverse hooks, so that in general the feather is a strong and elastic plate, convenient for resisting air pressure and cutting it. The down has no shaft, and its barbules are not interlocked with each other.

The largest feathers on birds are in the tail and on the wings. During flight, the former serve as a kind of rudder, and therefore are called helmsmen; the latter resist air flows when the wing flaps and are called flight wings. Smaller covert feathers cover the surface of the body with fans.

Feathers can be black, brown, gray, blue, yellow, red, green and other colors. Their color depends on the presence of pigment grains in the horny substance of the feather, their location and combination. The metallic shine of feathers, observed in some species of birds, for example, peacocks, pheasants, hummingbirds, depends on the conditions of reflection and refraction of light rays by the feather surface, which has a unique structure.

In waterfowl, the feather does not get wet, since it is covered on the outside with a thin layer of fat. This fat is secreted by the coccygeal gland, located at the base of the tail. When cleaning its feathers, the bird lubricates them with fat.

In some birds, for example the heron, very thin horny plates measuring thousandths of a millimeter constantly fall off from their special downy feathers. They sprinkle all the feathers like powder, which protects them from getting wet.

During the life of a bird, a periodic change of feathers occurs - molting, which is age-related and seasonal.

The young are covered with a temporary, so-called juvenile feather, which falls out with age and is replaced by another. In many birds, males “put on” a festive, mating outfit in the spring, which disappears in the summer. Some bird species that winter in the north, such as the snowy owl, change their gray plumage to white in winter. Migratory birds moult entirely before their autumn migration.

The class of birds belongs to warm-blooded animals. They have a constant body temperature of 40 - 42°. This is their advantage over other, lower classes of animals: reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods. In all these cold-blooded animals, the intensity of life processes depends on the external temperature. When it gets cold, fish and frogs hibernate, and many insects die completely.

Many birds have a constant body temperature during severe frost. There are exceptions to this rule. In some species of birds, during a sudden cold snap, a kind of hibernation occurs. At the same time, body temperature drops to +4 - 8 degrees, and oxygen consumption decreases by 30 times. Hummingbirds fall into this state on cold nights, nightjars and swifts - when there is a sudden change in weather, when their food (flying insects) disappears, and they do not have time to leave the cold zone. Remember Andersen's fairy tale about the frozen swallow, which the children thawed with their own hands. A similar stupor occurs in the chicks of many polar birds.

Birds spend a lot of energy on muscle work during flight, on constant rapid movements, on the formation of eggs and feeding chicks.

Look, for example, how active a sparrow is, how much energy it spends on continuous jumps, turns, take-offs, chirping, how much energy is needed to build a nest and feed an entire brood. To ensure such work, a very intense metabolism and a high level of redox processes are required. Birds have little energy reserves in their bodies; Birds do not tolerate hunger well and eat a lot of food relative to their weight. Some birds eat more insects than their body weight during the day.

According to P.S. Kozlov, the pink starling, even in captivity, eats up to 200 locusts a day, and in natural conditions, with constant flight, its appetite apparently increases significantly. The cormorant eats about 800 grams of fish per day.

In severe frosts, birds die not from cold, but from exhaustion, losing significantly more heat than they receive when digesting food.

Digestion in birds is unique. Having no teeth, birds crush, tear food with their claws and beaks, or swallow it whole. Owls and eagle owls, for example, swallow a whole mouse, a small bird, and in some cases a squirrel or even a hedgehog. These predators do not digest the bones, feathers or fur of the prey, but regurgitate them in the form of lumps, which are called pellets.

Many species of birds, mainly granivores, have a crop - an expanded part of the esophagus where food accumulates and, as needed, enters the stomach in small portions (Fig. 6). Birds have two stomachs: the first is glandular, in which food is mixed with gastric juice, and the second is muscular with thick walls and keratinized mucous membrane. The muscular stomach replaces the birds' teeth, grinding solid food. It contains swallowed hard pebbles and grains of sand, which act as millstones. Birds have a short intestine. Food is digested in 5-6 hours, and in some species in 1-2 hours.

Accelerated metabolism requires an increased supply of oxygen to the body, that is, intensive breathing. Birds have a frequent breathing rhythm, a large lung surface, and a system of air sacs. The inhaled air passes through the lungs into the air sacs and returns through the lungs, as if washing them twice, on both sides. These bags line the surface of some internal organs and are connected to the cavities of the tubular bones. During fast flights, birds breathe air from their air sacs. When the wings flap, some air sacs alternately compress and other air sacs expand, which ensures a constant flow of air into the lungs. Air sacs are of great importance in regulating heat exchange, evaporating moisture and protecting internal organs from shocks. In waterfowl, air sacs reduce the specific weight of the body, making it easier to float on the water and, in addition, dive. It has been established that a duck can stay under water for up to 15 minutes.

Due to their intense metabolism, birds have their own characteristics in the circulatory system. They have a large heart in relation to their body weight. In small and fast-flying species it constitutes up to 2% of body weight. The number of heartbeats is also very large (compared to mammals); the more mobile and smaller the bird, the higher it is. Thus, in turkeys the number of heart pulsations per minute is 93, in an ostrich - 140, in a chicken - 212, in a jackdaw - 342, in a sparrow - 450.

There is also some originality in the processes of isolation. Birds have no sweat glands, the urine is thick and most of the moisture is released with exhaled air. The main product of nitrogen metabolism is not urea, but uric acid. Birds have one anal opening - the cloaca, into which the hind intestine, ureters and reproductive tract flow. Due to the absence of a bladder, urine is mixed with feces, and a significant part of the water contained in it is absorbed by the walls of the intestine.

Seabirds drink sea water. The excess salts present in it are removed from the body not only by the kidneys, but also... by the lacrimal glands. Pelicans, for example, even in a very good mood, constantly “cry”, and on their beak there are longitudinal grooves along which “tears” flow down to the tip of the beak. In the petrel, “tears” accumulate in peculiarly constructed nostrils, from where they are expelled with great force (a kind of sneezing).

Birds have a very complex and specific structure of their reproductive organs. Females have only one functioning ovary. In males, the testes are located in the body cavity. Most species do not have copulation organs. Bird eggs are large and have a number of protective shells. Reproduction will be discussed in more detail below.

Intensive metabolism in birds is associated with high activity of the endocrine glands. The processes of egg laying and feather change are associated with the activity of the thyroid gland and pituitary gland. Hormones of the gonads play a major role in the life of birds.

Birds have a highly organized nervous system. The large hemispheres of their brain are small and do not have convolutions, but the cerebellum and medulla oblongata are well developed. Birds have a good memory, easily navigate in space, and remember the area. They quickly develop conditioned reflexes.

Of the sense organs in birds, vision is the best developed. Its sharpness is 4 - 5 times higher than that of humans. A bird's eyes have a remarkable ability to quickly adapt to viewing distant and close objects. A falcon, for example, rushing at flying prey at a speed of 100 meters per second, sees it clearly all the time and can precisely regulate the direction of its flight.

The field of vision of each eye in birds reaches 150°, while in humans it is only 50°. The bird sees with each eye separately, so its total field of vision is 300°. If we remember at the same time the great mobility of the bird’s head, it is easy to imagine that they see the entire space surrounding them.

Visual perception plays a leading role in the orientation of birds, when obtaining food, protection from enemies, during the mating season and during long flights. Seasonal changes in their body, such as egg laying and molting, and behavioral characteristics: fallowing, building nests, feeding chicks, flying off for the winter, etc., depend on the length of daylight hours.

Most birds are good at distinguishing colors, and it is believed that they see a slightly larger part of the spectrum than humans. This, however, cannot be said about chickens suffering from “night blindness,” that is, they cannot see anything in poor lighting and generally have difficulty distinguishing blue and violet tones.

There is evidence that nocturnal birds of prey see infrared, that is, heat rays. For example, they can clearly see a gray mouse even at night, since its body generates heat.

Birds' hearing is well developed. Some birds of prey, guided by hearing when hunting, rush at prey hidden by grass or leaves and accurately hit the target.

In the life of birds, sound signaling is of great importance, providing constant communication between individuals of the same species, in a flock, between a male and a female, between parents and children.

Do birds talk to each other? Yes, definitely. Even in domestic chickens, about twenty different sounds have been recorded that have one meaning or another: fright, alarm, calling chickens, good mood, etc. “Spoken speech” is very well developed in birds living in flocks, for example, jackdaws or chatty magpies . We have already talked about their friendly communities.

Birds distinguish halftones and timbres of sounds very well, performing certain sound signals with great accuracy, therefore, they also have a certain “ear for music.” Birds of many songbird species, fed in the nest of another species, easily learn the “language” of their adoptive parents. Good hearing and musical memory can be judged by the ability of some species to learn and reproduce human speech. It is not difficult to train a parrot to pronounce words and even simple phrases. Starlings, crows, and magpies are also capable of learning individual words.

It has recently been established that, along with sounds accessible to humans, birds also perceive ultrasound. This ultra-fine sound has been found in many passerines, owls and swifts. Guajaro birds navigate in space using echolocation.

The sense of touch is of great importance for birds. When flying fast, the bird senses the approach of oncoming objects. Such an experiment was carried out. The swallow's eyes were taped shut. She quickly flew around the room without bumping into the walls. The role of the tactile organs of the skin in birds is played by thin, thread-like feathers with nerve endings at the base. Special tactile bodies are located in the beak of many birds. Ducks, for example, dive and gropingly find food in the mud. The sense of touch helps storks and herons in catching frogs.

Taste and smell are poorly developed in birds. Rotten meat covered with paper was placed in front of the hungry crow. The poor bird could not recognize the food and was left without breakfast.

Brain

Compared to fish, amphibians and reptiles, birds have a more developed brain, especially the large forebrain hemispheres and the cerebellum. The development of the cerebral hemispheres is associated with very complex behavior in birds. The cerebellum is known to provide balance and control movement coordination. In birds that have the ability to fly and perform complex and varied movements. The role of the cerebellum is very important. The cerebellum ensures balance and precise coordination of the bird during flight.

Neck

The neck of different birds is of different lengths and is characterized by great mobility. In most birds, the eyes are tightly fixed in the sockets and cannot move in them. However, this disadvantage is compensated by the extreme mobility of the neck, which allows you to turn your head in almost any direction.

Ability to turn the neck

The number of cervical vertebrae in birds ranges from 9 to 25. The great horned owl can turn its head 270 degrees. The pigeon has 14 cervical vertebrae. This allows him to turn his head almost 300 degrees.

A sparrow's neck has twice as many vertebrae as a giraffe's.

Leather

The skin is dry, devoid of glands, with the exception of the coccygeal gland, which serves to lubricate

Glands

Seagulls drink salty seawater because their tonsils are designed to filter salt.

Eyes

Birds have excellent eyesight. For example, eagle, soaring high above the meadows, sees a mouse running through the grass. Most birds have a very wide, almost circular field of vision. Therefore, birds see not only in front of them, but also to the sides and partly behind them. The eyes of birds, like those of reptiles, are equipped with three eyelids: the upper, lower and transparent inner - the nictitating membrane.

Monocular and binocular vision

In addition, the bird has a very wide overall field of vision because its eyes are located on the sides of its head. This type of vision, in which any object is visible with only one eye at a time, is called monocular. The total field of monocular vision is up to 340 degrees. Binocular vision, in which both eyes are facing forward, is characteristic only owls Their total field is limited to approximately 70 degrees. There are transitions between monocularity and binocularity. U woodcock the eyes are moved so far back that they perceive the rear half of the visual field no worse than the front. This allows him to monitor what is happening above his head, probing the ground with his beak in search of earthworms.

Visual acuity

American researchers managed to determine visual acuity kestrels (Cerchneis), birds from the family falcons (Falconidae). Her vision turned out to be 2.6 times sharper than a human's. If a person had such vision, he would be able to read the entire table to determine visual acuity at a distance of about 90 m.

The eye is larger than the brain

Eye ostrich bigger than his brain.

Blinks with eyes open

Owl- the only bird that blinks with its eyes open.

Good and weak sense of smell

In some birds ( ducks, waders, carrion-eating predators etc.) the sense of smell is well developed and is used when searching for food. In other birds it is poorly developed.

Hearing

Birds have very sensitive hearing. They pick up even faint sounds that warn of danger. Many nocturnal predators catch prey in the dark by hearing. Although birds hear sounds over a fairly wide frequency range, they are especially sensitive to acoustic signals from members of their own species. As experiments have shown, various species perceive frequencies from 40 Hz (budgie) to 29,000 Hz (finch), but usually the upper limit of audibility in birds does not exceed 20,000 Hz. The upper hearing limit of a pigeon is 12,000 Hz, the tawny owl is 21,000, the chicken is 38,000, and songbirds are 20,000 Hz.

See all the colors of the rainbow

Chickens see all the colors of the rainbow.

Echolocation

Several species of birds that nest in dark caves avoid hitting obstacles there using echolocation. This ability is observed, for example, in Guajaro (Steatornis caripensis) from Trinidad and northern South America. Flying in absolute darkness, it emits “bursts” of high-pitched sounds and, perceiving their reflection from the walls of the cave, easily navigates it.

In the famous Guajaro Cave, described by Humboldt, about 300,000 Guajaro nest. They fly out only at night, and use echolocation to navigate in the dark. Their sonar is less advanced than that of bats and dolphins. They operate at relatively low frequencies, namely in the range from 1500 to 2500 Hz. Therefore, the Guajaros do not notice small objects in the dark. The Guajaro caves are very noisy. Even at the entrance you hear an orchestra of bird calls and loud location clicks. Birds emit ominous, piercing screams, reminiscent of crying and moaning, difficult to bear for an unaccustomed ear.

Echolocation is also used Swifts, living in Indonesia and the Pacific Islands. For different species of swiftlets, sonars operate at different frequencies: 2000 to 7000 Hz. It is curious that when the bird is sitting, its echolocation apparatus does not work; location pulses are sent only in flight (when flapping the wings). The swiftlet sonar does not work even in the light. Swiftlets hunt only 40 minutes a day

Heart

Birds have larger hearts than mammals of similar body size, and the smaller the species, the relatively larger its heart. For example, in hummingbirds its mass accounts for up to 2.75% of the mass of the entire organism. All birds that fly frequently must have a large heart to ensure rapid blood circulation. The same can be said for species that live in cold areas or at high altitudes. Like mammals, birds have a four-chambered heart.

Heart twice the size

The bird's heart is structured exactly the same as that of mammals, but the size of the bird's heart is twice the size of the heart of a mammal of the same size.

A sparrow's heart beats 600-850 times per minute, a hummingbird's 600, a chicken's - 170-460, a goose's - 210-320, a pigeon's - 200, and an ostrich's - 65 beats per minute. Human pulse is 60-80 beats per minute. Extreme fright can increase a bird's blood pressure so much that major arteries burst and the bird dies.

Pulse in passerines at rest it is 400-600 beats, during flight - 1000.

Blood and blood pressure

Blood pressure in birds and mammals is 120-180 mm Hg. st, in arthropods it is 5-10, in the green frog - about 40, in active fish - 65-75.

Birds' blood typically contains more red blood cells than most mammals and, as a result, can carry more oxygen per unit of time, which is necessary for flight.

Metabolism

The process of digestion of food in birds is very active; for insectivores it does not exceed 1 hour, and for granivores - 4 hours. Intensive metabolism is associated with the consumption of a significant amount of food, especially increasing in small birds, which are characterized by large heat losses.

The chicken genome has been deciphered

The wild banker chicken, Gallus gallus or Gallus bankiva, also called the red junglefowl, is considered the ancestor of the domestic chicken (Gallus gallus domestica). It turned out that wild chicken DNA contains about a billion base pairs, which is 3 times less than human DNA. The estimated number of genes is estimated at 20,000 - 23,000 (about the same number in humans, which once again proves the important role of non-coding regions of the genome).

Digestive system

Two stomachs
Many granivorous birds have a crop in which they store food in order to digest it later. The two stomachs also help birds digest food in record time. In 4 hours, the goose digests the amount that is processed by the rabbit within 24 hours. In the upper stomach (proventriculus), food is crushed by digestive enzymes. The lower stomach (ventriculus) grinds food, as is done in mammals with teeth. In granivorous birds, digestion in the second stomach is more active than in insectivores and predators. To improve digestion, some birds swallow small pebbles.

Small buds
The excretory organs are represented by 2 large kidneys located deep in the pelvis. Their mass is 1-2% of body weight. Through two ureters, uric acid flows into the cloaca and is excreted along with excrement. There is no bladder, which makes the bird lighter.

Intestinal tract
An ostrich can weigh up to 140 kilograms. And the length of its intestinal tract is 14 meters.

The only bird with a bladder

Ostrich Struthioniformes- the only bird with a bladder.

Bones

The tubular bones of birds are hollow and contain air, which is why they are light.

Double Breathing

Some of the bronchial branches are not divided into bronchioles and extend beyond the lungs, forming thin-walled air sacs located between internal organs, muscles and even inside hollow bones. The volume of the air sacs is almost 10 times the volume of the lungs. Air sacs help increase the volume of inhaled air, participate in the mechanism of double breathing, promote heat transfer, protecting the body from overheating, and lighten the body weight of the bird.

During the flight birds breathe very quickly: The pigeon takes 450 breaths per minute.

Air conditioners
The role of air conditioners is performed by air bags. This to some extent compensates for the lack of sweating. Birds don't sweat!

During the breeding season, males of some species inflate their air sacs to attract the attention of females.

Eyes hidden under skin

Birds' eyes are very large because these animals navigate mainly by sight. The eyeball is mostly hidden under the skin, with only the dark pupil surrounded by a colored iris visible.

Three centuries
In addition to the upper and lower eyelids, birds also have a “third” eyelid – the nictitating membrane. This is a thin, transparent fold of skin that moves over the eye from the side of the beak. The nictitating membrane moisturizes, cleanses and protects the eye, instantly closing it in case of danger of contact with an external object.

Birds' fingers

...arranged differently depending on the habits of the species and their environment. For grasping branches, climbing, catching prey, carrying food and manipulating it, they are equipped with steeply curved sharp claws. In running and burrowing species, the fingers are thick, and the claws on them are strong, but rather blunt. Waterfowl have webbed toes, like ducks, or leathery blades on the sides, like grebes. In larks and some other open-space singing species, the hind finger is armed with a very long claw.

Spurs serve as skis
In pheasants and turkeys, there is a horny spur on the back of the tarsus, and in the collared hazel grouse, on the sides of the toes there is a rim of horny spines, which falls off in the spring and grows back in the fall to serve as skis in the winter. Most birds have 4 toes on their feet.

They move on the ground

... real sparrows - jumping, alternately moving their legs - larks and skates. However, when moving quickly, they switch not to running, but to jumping.

Body temperature
...high (41-42 degrees), supported by a complex thermoregulation system. Like mammals, birds are warm-blooded, and the range of normal body temperatures is higher than that of humans - from 37.7 to 43.5 degrees C. A chicken has a body temperature of 40.5 - 42.0, a pulse rate of 170 - 460, a goose respectively 40.0 - 41.0 and 210 - 320, for a sparrow - 39.8 - 43.5 and 600 - 850 degrees.

Chickens have a great sense of smell

The analysis of sequencing results has only just begun, but amazing facts have already been obtained. Thus, it was previously believed that chickens have a weak sense of smell, but this assumption is refuted by the discovery of a large number of genes responsible for the sense of smell.

Breathing without nostrils

In most birds, the nostrils lead into the nasal cavities at the base of the beak. However, cormorants, gannets and some other species lack nostrils and are forced to breathe through their mouths. Air entering the nostrils or mouth is directed to the larynx, from which the trachea begins.

Beak with teeth

The first birds on earth, Archeopteryx, had a beak with teeth, but a lot of time has passed since then, everything has changed, the beak of birds has also changed, it has no teeth. They have no teeth; they are partially replaced by sharp edges of the beak.

The beak grows throughout life

The beak is a continuation of the skull of birds, it consists of fragile tissues and therefore the shell of the beak is constantly being erased, but nature has provided for this - it is constantly renewed.

Beak shape
The beak can be long or short, curved up or down, spoon-shaped, serrated or with crossed jaws. Its shape depends on the method of obtaining food characteristic of the species, and therefore makes it possible to judge the feeding habits of the bird.

Longest beak

The Australian pelican Pelecanus conspicillatus has the longest beak of any bird. Its length measures 34 - 47 centimeters. Another record is the ratio of beak length to body length. It was installed by the Sword-billed Hummingbird Ensifera ensifera, which lives in the high Andes from Venezuela to Bolivia. Its beak has a wedge of 10.2 cm, which is four times longer than the bird's body, excluding the tail.

The most massive beak

...at the shoebill stork. Shoebill Balaeniceps rex they hunt individually fish, snakes, frogs, lizards and turtles in the drying up reed swamps of Uganda and Sudan.

Very big beaks
...the tropical American toucans are huge and brightly colored. There are even birds - rhinoceroses, found in tropical forests.

Males and females have different shaped beaks

The most amazing beaks should be recognized as the beaks of the New Zealand Heteralocha acutirostris, which became extinct in 1907. The fact is that the male and female of this species have different beaks in shape. In the male it is thick, short and straight, adapted for chiseling dry trees. And the female’s is thin, long and curved; she uses it to penetrate any cracks behind insects. The male and female huia search for food together.

Needle beak
Heron a straight, long and sharp beak is required. She needs to spear a fish or grab a jumping frog.

Beak with bag
...y pelicans used as a net for catching fish.

Crossed beak
The crossbill has a crossing beak.

Black or bright

Most species have a black beak. However, there are a variety of variations in its coloring, and in some birds, such as puffins and toucans Ramphastidae, this is the brightest area of the body.

U snow sparrows of the genus Montifringilla In summer the beak is black, in winter it is yellow.

Toporok is the second most abundant species in the island ecosystem of the Sea of Okhotsk and a relatively large species (650-880 g). It nests wherever the thickness of the peat turf allows it to dig holes, for which the bird uses, in particular, its bright orange beak, the contours of which repeat the shape of a bayonet shovel, and paws armed with strong claws. In addition, the beak is a tournament weapon at the beginning of the nesting season. The extravagant shape of the beak does not interfere with its main purpose - to capture and hold prey.

Drumming with beaks conveys messages

Using the beak woodpeckers- males, by drumming on a tree trunk, convey messages and warnings to rivals to females.

Clicking their beaks, they get angry
Storks They click it when they are angry or challenging an opponent.

Beaks become deformed
Various deformities of beaks - curvatures or abnormal lengths - have already been found in 30 species of Alaskan birds. Scientists are sounding the alarm - the anomaly is becoming epidemic. In many cases, due to a deformed beak, the bird cannot eat normally, clean itself and, ultimately, dies. According to recent observations, the total number of cases of beak deformity among Alaskan birds has reached 1,800. The first victims back in the 1990s were tits, and now crows are suffering from the same thing. It is assumed that the unfavorable environmental situation is to blame - chemicals damage the DNA of birds. But no evidence of this theory was found, just as no signs of the disease were found.

Smell

It has been experimentally proven that, for example, large seabirds, fulmars and petrels, can smell fish three kilometers away. But albatrosses can smell the bait (a piece of lard) as far as thirty kilometers away! But seabirds are not the only birds with such unusually sensitive noses.

Distinguishing plants by smell

Vultures look for leaks in gas pipelines

And the ability to respond to the scent of turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) was used to their advantage by US utility workers to detect gas leaks in gas pipelines. For this purpose, they began to add a substance with the smell of rotten meat to the transported natural gas. Having seen vultures circling over the gas pipeline route, the company employees could only carefully examine this place.

Smelling flowers

An interesting feature was noticed by ornithologists who observed the life of bowerbirds Chlamydera maculata, living in Australia and New Guinea. Having created a nest in a hollow, the female covers up the entrance to it, leaving only a small hole. She and the chicks that emerge will remain in it until the time comes to leave the nest. And all these days the male will bring them food, and sometimes... flowers. Food is understandable, but why flowers? After all, birds don't eat them. But maybe they like their smell?

The sense of smell in most birds is very poorly developed.

This correlates with the small size of their brain's olfactory lobes and short nasal cavities located between the nostrils and the oral cavity.

Sniffs out earthworms
The New Zealand bird should be recognized as the best sniffer kiwi, in which the nostrils are located at the end of a long beak and the nasal cavities are elongated as a result. These features allow her to stick her beak into the soil and sniff out earthworms and other underground food.

Sniffing vultures

It is also believed that vultures They find carrion using not only sight, but also smell.

Ducks chemically attract drakes
And one more interesting observation. In the spring, a group of wild ducks had their nostrils plugged. And the drakes immediately stopped showing interest in the females. It is believed that female ducks secrete some chemicals that attract males.

Taste

In birds it is poorly developed, because the lining of the oral cavity and the covers of the tongue are mainly horny and there is little space for taste buds on them. However hummingbird they clearly prefer nectar and other sweet liquids, and most species reject very sour or bitter food. However, these animals swallow food without chewing, i.e. rarely keep it in the mouth long enough to subtly distinguish the taste.

Languages
Woodpeckers and hummingbirds can stick out their unusually long tongue far beyond the beak. In some woodpeckers, it has rear-facing barbs at the end that help pull insects and their larvae out of holes in the bark. In hummingbirds, the tongue is usually forked at the end and curled into a tube for sucking nectar from flowers.

Grackles change color

American grackle birds (Quiscalus quiscula) look either multi-colored or black. The throat patch of the common ruby-throated hummingbird alternates between flashing bright red and appearing brownish-black. The iridescent color, which changes depending on the viewing angle, is mainly due to the mutual overlap of peculiarly expanded, twisted and black melanin-containing second-order beards.

Invisible birds

The coloring can be disjunctive, i.e. consisting of irregularly shaped, clearly defined contrasting spots, which “breaks” the contours of the body into parts that seem unrelated to each other and do not resemble a living creature. Painted this way waders, For example, stone picker And noisy plover, almost invisible against the backdrop of the pebble beach.

They scare you with color
Some birds are characterized by bright markings on the tail, body and wings that “flare up” during flight. Examples include white tail feathers of juncos (Junco hyemalis), white body avoc-billed woodpecker and white stripes on the wings dusky nightjar. Bright markings play a protective role. So, corpse, suddenly “flashing up” in front of an attacking predator, scares it for a moment, gaining additional time to escape. Also, bright spots can distract the enemy's attention from the most important parts of the body.

The longest and shortest legs

The longest legs are those of the ostrich Struthio camelus, which reach 1.3 m. The shortest legs are those of swifts, which belong to the family Apodidae (legless). But representatives of the family Jacanidae have the longest fingers relative to body length. Large birds from this family can boast fingers 15 cm long.

The tail serves as a fulcrum

During its chiselling work, the woodpecker tenaciously holds onto the tree with its paws and rests against it with its stiff tail.

Tail balancer
The magpie's tail is not an ornament, although it is very beautiful. The black tail with a bluish tint allows the bird to dive almost vertically from a height and maneuver well in the thickets. The long, elegant tail of a pheasant serves the same purpose.

For snipe tail - musical instrument. When descending sharply, the tail feathers vibrate, producing sounds similar to the bleating of a young lamb.

At the peacock's tail - a huge fan-screen, on which everything the groom wants to say to his chosen girlfriend is written in different colors.

Multimeter tails

The tail is such an expressive part of animals that some breeders achieve success by raising roosters with tails reaching several meters (Japan).

This article will focus on the giraffe. This is a very beautiful and majestic animal.
It lives in Africa, but you don’t have to go there to see it. In many zoos around the world you can get acquainted with this unique and unforgettable animal. There is probably not a single person who cannot imagine what a giraffe looks like. He is a very famous and recognizable representative of the animal world, largely due to his long neck. How many cervical vertebrae does a giraffe have? Surely you think that’s a lot, since he has such a neck. However, not everything is so simple.

What is a giraffe

The giraffe is taller than all representatives of the fauna inhabiting our planet. His height reaches six meters. Moreover, a third of the growth occurs in the neck. This animal lives mainly in African savannas. In terms of size of all land animals, the giraffe is in fourth place. Only the elephant, rhinoceros and hippopotamus are larger than this representative of the animal world. The giraffe's tail reaches one meter in length and ends in a tassel of dark hair. The giraffe's color is spotted. The spots are irregular in shape and dark in color (brown to black). The spaces between them have a yellowish tint. Females and males have short horns on their heads.

Giraffes have excellent eyesight. They feed mainly on shoots of bushes and trees, but can also feast on, for example, mimosa, apricot or young grass. A giraffe can survive without water for a very long time - months. And, of course, the most distinctive feature in the appearance of a giraffe is its long neck. So, how many cervical vertebrae does a giraffe have? This is exactly what will be discussed below. Many are surprised to learn the truth.

How many vertebrae are in the cervical region of a giraffe?

Surprisingly, in the cervical region of this animal there are exactly as many vertebrae as there are in the neck of a small mouse, as well as in humans and most mammals. Why does a giraffe have such a long neck? This is because the vertebrae in it are very elongated. Moreover, they have a special structure that gives the giraffe’s neck sufficient flexibility. This animal can very dexterously bend its long neck as much as it needs to in order to get food and care for its body. So how many cervical vertebrae does a giraffe have? The correct answer is seven.

Structural features of a giraffe associated with its growth

We already know how many cervical vertebrae are in a giraffe’s spine. What features does the animal have in connection with such high growth? Due to the giraffe's large growth and, as a result, the increased load on the circulatory system, it simply needs to have a very strong heart. In a giraffe, it weighs about 12 kg and passes up to 60 liters of blood per minute. In order to pump blood from the heart to the head, the pressure must be very high. Otherwise, when lowering the head, it could rise to critical sizes. But the giraffe’s brain is reliably protected by vascular formations. There are also special valves in the veins that prevent blood from flowing into the brain.

Besides the fact that to the question: “How many cervical vertebrae does a giraffe have” - the correct answer, oddly enough, is only seven, this animal may also surprise you with some interesting facts:

Giraffes give birth standing up. Therefore, newborn babies fall from a height of 2 m when they are born.

The animal's eyes are positioned so that it can see everything around without turning its head.

The giraffe's tongue is very long - about half a meter. At the same time, it is also very flexible. If desired, the giraffe can reach his ear with his tongue.

This is such an interesting animal - the giraffe. Unusual and very memorable.

1. The tongue of an adult giraffe is about half a meter long and is so mobile that the giraffe can pick its ear with the tip of its tongue.

2. The giraffe's heart is especially strong, weighing 12 kg and passing 60 liters of blood per minute, thereby creating a pressure that is three times higher than that of a human.

3. The giraffe's neck can reach over 6 meters and consists of only 7 vertebrae. What surprised scientists was that the giraffe's amazingly long neck has the same number of vertebrae as the necks of mice and most other mammals. But in a giraffe, unlike most other mammals, the vertebrae are elongated and have a special “ball-and-hole” structure, which gives the neck remarkable flexibility. Thanks to this, the giraffe can bend and contort its neck as it needs to in order to groom its entire body and carefully pluck the highest branches of trees.

4. A giraffe's eyes are set so that it can see in all directions without turning its head. Giraffes also have color vision.

5. It is widely believed that giraffes are voiceless animals. However, in reality they communicate with each other at frequencies below 20 Hz, inaudible to human hearing.

6. The gallop of giraffes is very peculiar: the animal can simultaneously lift both front legs off the ground, only by throwing its neck and head far back and thus shifting its center of gravity. Therefore, a galloping giraffe constantly, as if deeply nods, bows with each jump. This seemingly clumsy manner of galloping does not prevent him from reaching speeds of up to 50 km/h. And the jumps reach up to 8 meters long.

7. A giraffe is born in a standing position, so the first thing newborns have to do is fall from a height of two meters. Immediately after birth, the baby giraffe reaches 1.8 m in height and 50 kg. After just an hour, the cub stands firmly on its feet and after a few hours begins to run.

Children raised by animals