Who are birds definition for children. Bird class

Primitive people may be responsible for the destruction of the largest birds that have ever existed - such a hypothesis was put forward by researchers after they discovered fossilized bones with specific serifs.

According to scientists, this indicates that epiornisids were hunted and consumed meat as food. The fossil remains are approximately 10,000 years old. Until now, scientists believed that the first settlers arrived on the island about 2500-4000 years ago.

“This at least pushes back the date of human arrival by 6,000 years.”- says Dr. James Hansford, a scientist from the Zoological Society of London. The discovery, as well as new evidence of human presence, say that understanding the loss of the island's unique fauna requires "a radically different theory of extinction."

Instead of wiping out the animals in a short amount of time, humans seem to have lived alongside birds for thousands of years before the epiornithids went extinct - about 1,000 years ago.

"Humans seem to have coexisted with elephant birds and other now extinct species for nine thousand years, and with apparently relatively little negative impact on biodiversity, which offers new ideas for species conservation today." says Dr. Hansford.

Epiornis bone with traces of human tools

Epiornis was once a common sight in Madagascar. They weighed at least half a ton, reached a height of 3 m and laid giant eggs that were larger than those of modern ostriches. Aepyornis and Mullerornis lived among other unusual species on the island, including giant lemurs, which also suffered the sad fate of extinction. There are many theories as to why they became extinct and how many people were involved.

Epiornis egg compared to chicken

The study also changes our understanding of the first human encounters on a tropical island:

“We do not know the origin of these people and will not confirm anything until we find other archaeological evidence,”- says Professor Patricia Wright of Stony Brook University, research applicant. “The question remains: who are these people? And when and why did they disappear? The new study has been published in the journal Science Advances.

You can often hear the question: are birds animals or not? Having studied all the features of the structure and life of representatives of this class, it will be possible to answer it with confidence.

General characteristics

The class Birds includes 9,000 species united in the following superorders: keelless, or running (ostriches, kiwi), penguins, or swimming (emperor penguin, spectacled, Magellanic, Galapagos, crested and others), keeled, or flying (chicken, pigeon, passerine , goose and others).

Birds are similar in structure to reptiles and represent a progressive branch that was able to adapt to flight. Their forelimbs evolved into wings during evolution. Birds are characterized by a constant body temperature, characteristic of higher vertebrates, therefore, birds are warm-blooded animals. This is the first answer to the question "Is a bird an animal or not?".

They owe theirs to pseudosuchia with a similar structure of the hind limbs.

body and skin

The body of birds has a streamlined shape with a small head and a long movable neck. The body ends with a tail.

The skin is thin, dry, practically devoid of glands. Only a few have a coccygeal gland that produces a fat-like secret with water-repellent properties. Horn formations (derivatives of the epidermis of the skin) cover the beak, claws, scales of the fingers and the tarsus (lower part of the lower leg). Feathers are also derivatives of leather. They are divided into two groups: contour and down. Contour, in turn, are steering (flight control), flywheel (keeping the bird in the air), as well as coverts (located on top of the body). Under the contour are down feathers. They help retain body heat. In the process of molting, older feathers fall out completely, and new ones grow in their place.

Skeleton and muscular system

It is distinguished by its special strength and lightness due to the cavities in the bones filled with air. It consists of the following sections: cervical and thoracic, lumbar and sacral, as well as caudal. The cervical region is extremely mobile due to the many vertebrae. In the thoracic region, the vertebrae are tightly fused and bear ribs, movably connected to the sternum and forming the chest. To attach the muscles that set the wings in motion, there is a protrusion on the sternum - a keel. As a result of the fusion of the lumbar and sacral, as well as partially caudal vertebrae between themselves and with the pelvic bones, a sacrum is formed, which serves as a support for the hind limbs.

The muscular system of birds is well developed. Depending on the ability to fly, certain departments achieve special development. In birds that fly well, the muscles that set the wing in motion are well developed, while those who have lost this ability have the muscles of the hind limbs and neck.

Digestive and excretory systems

The digestive system is characterized by the absence of teeth. To capture and hold food, a beak with horn covers on the jaws is used. Through the mouth, food enters the pharynx, and after it - into the long esophagus, which has a pocket-like extension (goiter) to soften it. The posterior end of the esophagus opens into the stomach, which is divided into two sections, glandular and muscular (here the food undergoes mechanical grinding). The intestine consists of the duodenum, where the ducts of the liver open, and the pancreas, as well as the small and short rectum, ending in the cloaca. This structure contributes to the rapid removal of undigested residues to the outside.

Birds include paired kidneys and ureters that open into the cloaca. From it, urine, along with feces, is excreted outside.

Respiratory system

The respiratory organs of birds are maximally adapted for flight. Through the nasal cavity, air enters the pharynx and trachea, which divides into two bronchi in the chest. Here is the voice box. Once in the lungs, the bronchi branch strongly. The lungs themselves have a complex structure and consist of numerous through tubes. Some of them expand, forming air sacs, they are located between the internal organs, muscles and in tubular bones. Birds tend to. This happens due to the fact that during the flight the air passes through the lungs twice: when it is sucked in on a flap of the wing and pushed out when lowered due to the compression of the bags.

Nervous system

The organization of the nervous system in birds is quite complex and similar to that of higher vertebrates. This once again gives an affirmative answer to the question "Is a bird an animal or not?" The system consists of two parts: the brain and the spinal cord. In the head section, the cerebellum is well developed, which is responsible for the coordination of movements, as well as the anterior hemispheres and is responsible for complex forms of behavior. The spinal cord is most developed in the shoulder, lumbar and sacral regions, which provides good motor functions. These features also give a clear affirmative answer to the question "Is a bird an animal or not?"

The behavior of birds is based on unconditioned (innate) reflexes: feeding, reproduction, nesting, laying eggs, mating games, singing. Unlike the class of reptiles, they can form and consolidate conditioned (acquired in the process of life) reflexes, which indicates their highest stage of evolution. One example of conditioned reflexes can be the fact of their successful domestication by man. It is believed that birds are domestic animals that easily rebuild their behavior and lifestyle from the wild (natural) type to the cultural (domestic) type.

Circulatory system

The organs of the circulatory system of birds, like those of most higher vertebrates, are represented by a four-chambered heart, consisting of atria (2) and ventricles (2), as well as vessels. Their blood is completely divided into venous and arterial. She goes through two circles of blood circulation (small, large).

reproduction

Birds are dioecious animals with a complex and highly developed system of mating behavior, breeding with eggs and caring for them.

All of the above give an unambiguous answer to the question "Is a bird an animal or not?" Of course, birds are animals.

Birds are the most numerous class of terrestrial vertebrates, uniting about 8600 living species. Birds are feathered, homoiothermic amniotes whose forelimbs have evolved into wings. In many morphological features, they are similar to reptiles. This similarity is expressed in the presence of horny scales at least on the fingers of the hind limbs and in the horny cover of the beak, in the almost complete absence of skin glands. The skull is diapsid type, with a reduced upper arch; there is only one occipital condyle and a reptile-like set of bones. Adaptation to flight led to the relative uniformity of the body shape. Body temperature is constant, birds are homoiothermic animals. The skin of birds is thin, dry, practically devoid of skin glands.

The skin of birds is thin, dry, practically devoid of skin glands. The surface layers of the cells of the epidermal layer become keratinized. The connective tissue layer of the skin is subdivided into thin skin itself and subcutaneous tissue. The only skin gland of birds is the coccygeal gland. Growths of the keratinizing epidermal layer of the skin form the horny cover of the beak - ramfoteka. Horny scales of the reptilian type cover the fingers, tarsus, and sometimes part of the lower leg. The last phalanges of the toes are covered with horny claws. Feather cover, specific for birds, is also horny formations of the epidermal layer of the skin.

The skeleton of the forelimb in birds has been transformed into a wing. A powerful tubular bone - the shoulder - has a flattened head, which significantly limits rotational movements in the shoulder joint. The distal end of the shoulder articulates with two bones of the forearm: a straighter and thinner radius and a more powerful ulna, on the posterior-upper side of which tubercles are visible - the places of attachment of the primaries of the secondary primaries. Of the proximal elements of the wrist, only two small independent bones are preserved, which are connected by ligaments to the bones of the forearm. The bones of the distal row of the wrist and all the bones of the metacarpus merge into a common metacarpal-carpal bone, or buckle. The skeleton of the fingers is sharply reduced: only two phalanges of the second finger are well developed. Only one short phalanx is preserved from the first and third fingers. Primary flywheels are attached to the buckle and to the phalanges of the second finger. Several feathers are attached to the phalanx of the first finger - a wing. Powerful coracoids with expanded lower ends are firmly connected by inactive joints to the anterior end of the sternum. The narrow and long shoulder blades fuse with the free ends of the coracoids, forming a deep articular cavity for the head of the shoulder. The clavicles fuse into a fork located between the free ends of the coracoids and acting as a shock absorber, softening shocks during wing beats. The skeleton of the hind limb is formed by powerful tubular bones. The proximal end of the femur ends with a rounded head that articulates with the pelvis, and at the distal end, the relief surfaces form a knee joint with the bones of the lower leg. It is strengthened by the kneecap lying in the muscular tendon. To a well-developed tibia grows, forming its distal end, the upper row of tarsal bones. The fibula is greatly reduced and adheres to the upper part of the outer surface of the tibia.

The main organ for capturing food is the beak; in most birds, the conical tongue occupies almost the entire bottom of the oral cavity; in its main part, keratinized spines are developed, which help to hold prey. The ducts of the salivary glands open into the oral cavity. Behind the tongue lies the laryngeal fissure (leads to the trachea), behind which the oral cavity imperceptibly passes into a long, easily extensible tube - the esophagus, lying under the skin of the neck. In some birds, a voluminous expansion, a goiter, forms in the lower part of the esophagus. The stomach of birds is divided into two sections: glandular and muscular stomachs. Grinding food is helped by pebbles swallowed by birds (gastroliths). The duodenum departs from the muscular stomach, covering the dense pancreas in a narrow loop. The bilobed liver has a gallbladder. The duodenum passes into the small intestine. The small intestine forms several loops and passes into a short rectum, which flows into the cloaca. On the border of the small and rectum, there are paired outgrowths - the caecum, which in most birds are small in size. The chicks have a thick-walled blind outgrowth of the dorsal side of the cloaca - the bag of Fabricius, in which white blood cells are formed; in adult birds it is reduced.

Adaptation to flight led to the relative uniformity of the body shape. The body is compact, more or less rounded. The head is small, the neck is long and mobile. The forelimbs - wings - in a calm state are folded and pressed to the sides of the body. The plumage provides streamlining of the body. The sizes of birds vary within small limits; the possibility of flight limits the increase in size. The mass of large flying birds does not exceed 14-16 kg. The smallest of the birds are some hummingbirds with a maximum weight of 1.6-2 g. The loss of the ability to fly often leads to an increase in size.

Through the paired nostrils, air is sucked into the nasal cavity and through the choanae passes into the oral cavity. The larynx opens here with a narrow gap, supported by three laryngeal cartilages. The upper larynx of birds does not have vocal folds and does not serve as a source of sounds. The trachea follows the larynx. In the body cavity, the trachea splits into two bronchi, each of which enters the corresponding lung and branches there. The lower part of the trachea and the initial sections of the bronchi form the lower larynx, the vocal apparatus, which is characteristic only for birds. The lungs are relatively small in size and have little extensibility; they grow to the ribs on the sides of the spinal column. Entering the lung, the bronchus splits into 15-20 secondary bronchi, most of which end blindly, and some communicate with the air sacs. The secondary bronchi communicate with each other by numerous smaller parabronchi, from which many bronchioles depart - radially located cellular outgrowths densely woven with pulmonary blood capillaries. Air sacs are connected to the lungs of birds.

In birds, the large and small circles of blood circulation are completely disconnected: venous and arterial blood flows do not mix anywhere, the right (venous) half of the heart is completely separated from the left (arterial). The heart is four chambered, with two atria and two ventricles. Venous blood through large veins is collected in the right atrium and passes into the right ventricle. The pulmonary artery departs from it, dividing into the right and left branches, through which venous blood enters the corresponding lung. Arterial blood oxidized in the lungs through the right and left pulmonary veins enters the left atrium. This is a small circle of blood circulation. The systemic circulation begins with the left ventricle, from which only one vessel departs - the right aortic arch. Immediately after leaving the heart, the right aortic arch separates two vessels - the right and left innominate arteries, and itself, turning sharply over the right bronchus, goes back along the spinal column like the dorsal aorta.

Marina Darchenko
Synopsis of the OD "Who are the birds?"

Abstract

directly educational activity (hereinafter - educational event)

in the senior group of general developmental orientation

Topic: "What are birds?"

Darchenko Marina Vladimirovna, teacher of the municipal budgetary preschool educational institution of the municipality of the city of Krasnodar "Child Development Center - Kindergarten No. 201" Planet of Childhood "

Educational area "Cognitive development".

Educational:

- to form emotionally positive cooperation with adults and peers in the process of solving the task;

- continue to teach how to negotiate, take into account the interests and feelings of others, ask questions to adults.

Educational:

Create a motivational situation for studying the world of birds, its diversity;

To form the experience of independent discovery of new knowledge about birds and emotional experience of the joy of discovery;

To enable children, with the help of an adult, to learn about the distinctive features of birds and the influence of the habitat on appearance and lifestyle.

Developing:

Train mental operations: analysis, comparison, classification, generalization;

Develop memory, speech, observation, horizons, logical thinking.

No. Stages of work Stage content

Introduction to the game situation.

My young friends, look - we have a guest today.

I wonder who it is? (Chick).

Look, he brought a video letter. Would you like to see?

Fragment of the cartoon "Who are the birds?"

What happened to Chicken?

The lamb told the Chicken that he was a bird, but the Chicken doesn't know what birds are?

Do you want to help the Chicken find "their own", that is, to introduce the world of birds?

Actualization.

What do you know about birds? (Answers of children).

Didactic game "What kind of bird?" (I part).

(Children recognize the birds they know).

Difficulty in the situation.

Multimedia didactic game "What kind of bird?".

(II part).

And what is this bird? (we don't know) (cross)

It turns out that we still do not know everything about birds.

Can we help Chicken find out who the birds are? (Not)

Why can't we? What needs to be done for this? (First you need to study the world of birds, and then tell the Chicken who the birds are).

Model of three questions (L. Svirskaya) - the first part:

What do you want to know? (and I want to know....)

How to find out? (think, ask, look….

Discovery of new knowledge.

What are scientists who study birds called? (Ornithologists).

My young helpers, do you want to become ornithologists, study the world of birds and help the Chicken? (Yes).

Game research activity "We are ornithologists".

I know the magic words, now we will pronounce them and become ornithologists:

One, two, three, four, five,

We want to become ornithologists!

(After these words, a box for laboratory research appears in which badges with the names of "ornithologists" are placed, three envelopes with tasks, a magnifying glass, a zipper. Children transform into ornithologists)

So, ornithologists, we are starting to study the world of birds.

All scientists, when they study something, keep journals, diaries, in which they record their discoveries. Where are we opening? (in "The Book of Discoveries")

Dear scientists, to study the world of birds, there are three envelopes in the box for laboratory research, they were put by real ornithologists, if we complete all the tasks, we can tell the Chicken about birds.

First envelope: pictures of birds and other animals.

We need to answer the question: what are birds? Find their main distinguishing features.

See who is in the pictures? (Birds, animals….)

Place only birds on the easel.

What do all birds have in common?

(If the children immediately named all the main distinguishing features of birds, then we proceed to modeling, if they named other, insignificant features, then we bring them to this, that insects and some mammals can fly, and mice and fish build nests).

Modeling.

We have models, choose those that depict the main distinguishing features of birds: (beak, two legs and two wings, chicks hatch from eggs, the body is covered with feathers, it turns out there is only one model, and the rest must be depicted)

How to show with the help of a model that the body of birds is covered with feathers? What other distinguishing features do birds have?

(Children use models to identify the distinguishing features of birds and depict them in the Discovery Book)

Dear ornithologists, we have learned who the birds are and their main features.

Is our chicken a bird? Prove whether he has the signs that we depicted on the models?

Yes, the Lamb was right. The chicken is a bird.

My friends, did we help Chicken to find his own, that is, birds?

Experimental activities.

The second envelope: feathers (primary and downy).

What do you think is in the second envelope?

I make a riddle

"I flew through the forest,

It fell into the water and became dry ”(Feather)

There are two feathers in the envelope, how is each feather arranged and why do birds need them?

I wonder if the feathers are light or heavy?

Experience "Light - heavy"

Children put a pen on one hand and a stone on the other.

They conclude that the pen is light.

Throw up your pen. What do you see? (Falls slowly, gently spinning).

And what makes it easy?

Cut off the edge of the pen, what do we see? (It is light, since the rod is empty).

Experience "Flypen".

Which of the two feathers is needed for flight? (First dense, hard).

Wave the first feather (primary, and now the second (down).

What do you feel? (Air).

Which feather captures the most air? (First).

The first feather is called “flight”, when a bird flaps its wings, the feather elastically springs without unhooking the hairs, young researchers, why do you think?

Let's look at the pen through a magnifying glass. (You see on the grooves of the feather there are protrusions and hooks that are firmly and easily connected, fastening the surface of the feather, and if they unhook, then the bird connects them with its beak)

The bird feather has connections very similar to those of a zipper. Separate barbs firmly adhere to each other, forming a dense and durable mesh plate. It turns out that the individual elements of the bird feather are firmly connected to each other, almost the same as the parts of the zipper.

Experience "Down feather".

What is the name of the second pen? (Downy).

What are the properties of down feathers? (small, fluffy, thin, the hairs are not linked, the rod is thin).

Try to hide a downy feather in your palms, what do you feel?

(And "flywheel?")

Why a downy feather for a bird? (A downy feather serves the bird to keep warm. They are located on the body, head, wings)

What kind of feathers does our Chicken have?

My young ornithologists, what discoveries about bird feathers have you made? How to record this in the "Book of Discoveries"?

(Children are models depicting discoveries made in the course of experimental activities).

Inclusion of new knowledge in the knowledge system.

The third envelope: the didactic game "Split into groups."

Children are invited to divide into pairs and group the birds (pictures with the image of birds) according to one or another feature, explain their decision.

(In the "Book of Discoveries" children stick pictures, grouping them according to one or another feature)

And our Chicken, to which group will we refer? (Poultry).

Reflection (summary).

My young friends, we were able to help the Chicken find "his"

What knowledge helped us?

What else would you like to know about birds?

What do you need to do to find out?

(Children with their parents are preparing a page for the common book "The Most Amazing Birds").

It is proved that birds evolved from scale-like reptiles that lived about 180,000,000 years ago. Millions of years ago, the scales turned into feathers, and the front legs became wings.

The structure of birds is very interesting.

In order for a bird to be able to fly, its skeleton is made up of hollow bones. The work of the wings is provided by powerful pectoral muscles. The large and wide wings of some birds allow them to soar in the air currents for a long time, slowly flapping their wings. However, small birds often have to flap their wings to stay in the air.

Most birds are good flyers, some of them can fly thousands of kilometers. However, there are also flightless birds, such as the ostrich and the penguin, that walk on the ground or swim.

The ostrich is the largest bird in the world. Its weight can exceed 150 kilograms, and its height is two meters. The smallest bird, the hummingbird, can weigh no more than two grams and fit in the palm of your hand.

All birds lay eggs. Most of them are caring parents who have to spend a lot of energy to hatch eggs and raise chicks.

But there are also birds that lay their eggs in the nests of foster parents so that they raise a foundling. So does, for example, a cuckoo. Many birds build nests, but some species simply lay their eggs in a warm place and then leave them.

Most birds are wild, but some people have tamed and bred breeds of domestic birds based on them. Among them are chickens, pigeons and canaries. Some birds are even raised on farms for their meat and eggs.

But man has learned to use such species of birds that live in nature. For example, quail eggs are very tasty. Even in ancient times, man learned to tame some birds of prey in order to use them while hunting, for example, a hawk.

The shape of the beak of birds is very interesting, which can be very diverse. In order for birds of prey to tear apart their prey, their beak is bent like a hook. Birds that eat solid food tend to have small beaks.

For example, the blue tit, for example, has a strong and short beak, which is convenient to eat nuts, seeds and insects. The nuthatch has a powerful pointed beak for breaking ripe nuts and tree bark.

For picking out worms and slugs from cracks in the bark of trees, a sharp and thin beak is convenient, as, for example, in blackbirds. The beak of the crossbill looks a bit strange. But its crossed ends are very well adapted for husking seeds from cones of conifers, which are the main food of crossbills. The short and wide beak of the nightjar is convenient for grabbing midges and other nocturnal insects on the fly. Wading birds, such as waders, usually have long, thin noses to help them dig through mud and mud.

Most birds have beaks adapted only to one type of food, but some, such as the swallow and the thrush, successfully live on a mixed diet.