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The bird skeleton is highly adapted for flight. It is extremely lightweight but strong enough to withstand the stresses of taking off, flying, and landing. One key adaptation is the fusing of bones into single ossifications, such as the pygostyle. Because of this, birds usually have a smaller number of bones than other terrestrial vertebrates.
This stylised bird skeleton highlights the furcula Wishbone of a chicken. The furcula (Latin for "little fork"; pl.: furculae) [a] or wishbone is a forked bone found in most birds and some species of non-avian dinosaurs, and is formed by the fusion of the two clavicles. [1]
Birds are generally digitigrade animals (toe-walkers), [7] [10] which affects the structure of their leg skeleton. They use only their hindlimbs to walk . [2] Their forelimbs evolved to become wings. Most bones of the avian foot (excluding toes) are fused together or with other bones, having changed their function over time.
English: A stylised bird skeleton 1. Skull, 2. Cervical vertebrae, 3. Furcula, 4. Coracoid, 5. Uncinate process, 6. Keel, 7. Patella, 8. Tarsometatarsus, 9. Digits ...
This stylised bird skeleton highlights the synsacrum Synsacrum of an unidentified bird. The synsacrum is a skeletal structure of birds and other dinosaurs, in which the sacrum is extended by incorporation of additional fused or partially fused caudal or lumbar vertebrae. This structure can only be seen in birds.
An embryonic skeleton of Aepyornis is known from an intact egg, around 80–90% of the way through incubation before it died. This skeleton shows that even at this early ontogenetic stage that the skeleton was robust, much more so than comparable hatchling ostriches or rheas, [27] which may suggest that hatchlings were precocial. [19]
The dodo's appearance in life is evidenced only by drawings, paintings, and written accounts from the 17th century. Since these portraits vary considerably, and since only some of the illustrations are known to have been drawn from live specimens, the dodos' exact appearance in life remains unresolved, and little is known about its behaviour.
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