p. 302 “Archaeologists at first thought huge earthen mounds on New Caledonia … were human burial grounds… .” Hansell, M.H. 2004. Bird Nests and Construction Behavior. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, U.K.: 280 p.
p. 302 “Other sizeable birds on islands included: the giant swans of Malta… .” (1) Hume and Walters (2012). (2) Naish (2012).
p. 302 “All of these birds had something else in common, which was their rapid extinction soon after humans came in contact with them, found them delicious, introduced egg predators, and changed their habitats.” Burney and Flannery (2005).
p. 302 “For instance, moa-nola diets are known through their coprolites, which showed these were important grazers in Hawaiian ecosystems that lacked mammals as herbivores.” James, H.F., and Burney, D.A., 1997. The diet and ecology of Hawaii’s extinct flightless waterfowl: evidence from coprolites. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 62: 279-297.
p. 303 “Bones from about 12,000 to 100,000 years ago there include remains of both the largest known stork (Leptoptilos robustus) and a diminutive species of hominin (human relative), Homo floresiensis, nicknamed the ‘hobbit.’” (1) Meijer, H.J.M., and Due, R.A. 2010. A new species of giant marabou stork (Aves: Ciconiiformes) from the Pleistocene of Liang Bua, Flores (Indonesia). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society, 160: 707-724. (2) Brown, P., Sutikna, T., Morwood, M.J., Soejono, R.P., Jatmiko, S.E.W., and Due, R.A. 2004. A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia. Nature, 431: 1055-1061.
p. 303 “More likely menu items for these storks would have been rodents of unusual size, such as the Flores giant rat (Papagomys armandvillei)… .” Zijlstra, J.S., van den Hoek Ostende, L.W., and Due, R.A. 2008. Verhoeven’s giant rat of Flores (Papagomys theodorverhoeveni, Muridae) extinct after all? Contributions to Zoology, 77: 25-31.
p. 303 “These consist of holes in the skull of the ‘Taung child,’ which belonged to a juvenile Australopithecus africanus.” Berger, L.W., and McGraw, W.S. 2007. Further evidence for eagle predation of, and feeding damage on, the Taung child. South African Journal of Science, 103: 496-498.
p. 303 “Some paleoanthropologists even speculate that frequent eagle attacks would have selected for more cooperative behavior and larger body size in hominins, thus deterring these predators and contributing to greater stature.” Berger and McGraw (2007).
p. 304 “Both can be summarized as the ‘island rule,’ although this can be split into ‘island gigantism’ and ‘island dwarfism,’ respectively.” Meiri, S., Cooper, N., and Purvis, A. 2008. The island rule: made to be broken? Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, B, 275: 141-148.
p. 304 “Back in the Cretaceous, plate-tectonic shifting caused the main landmasses of New Zealand to split from eastern Australia, taking its dinosaurs with it.” Molnar, R.E., and Wiffen, J. 1994. A Late Cretaceous polar dinosaur fauna from New Zealand. Cretaceous Research, 15: 689-706.
p. 304 “For example, before humans showed up about eight hundred to a thousand years ago, Haast’s eagles (Harpagornis moorei) were the top carnivores in New Zealand… .” Naish (2012).
p. 305 “Fortuitously enough, paleontologist Sir Richard Owen—who coined the word ‘dinosaur’—first studied these fabulous flightless birds in the early 19th century… .” Dawson, G. “On Richard Owen’s Discovery, in 1839, of the Extinct New Zealand Moa from Just a Single Bone.” In Felluga, D.F. (editor), BRANCH: Britain, Representation and Nineteenth-Century History. Extension of Romanticism and Victorianism on the Net: http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=gowandawson-on-richard-owens-discovery-in-1839-of-the-extinct-newzealand-moa-from-just-a-single-bone
p. 305 “Thanks to their coprolites, we even know what plants they ate and in which ecosystems, described in a 2013 study done by Jamie Wood and other scientists.” Wood, J.R., Wilmshurst, J.M., Richardson, S.J., Rawlence, N.J., Wagstaff, S.J., Worthy, T.H., and Cooper, A. 2013. Resolving lost herbivore community structure using coprolites of four sympatric moa species (Aves: Dinornithiformes). 2013. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published ahead of print September 30, 2013: doi:10.1073/pnas.1307700110.
p. 305 “Like the elephant birds in Madagascar, though, they fell victim to the ways of humans, and were extinct by the end of the 15th century.” Burney and Glannery (2005).
p. 305 “Among these birds are the flightless kiwis, consisting of five species of Apteryx.” Colbourne, R. 2006. Kiwi (Apteryx spp.) on offshore New Zealand islands: populations, translocations and identification of potential release sites. DOC Research and Development Series, 208: 24 p.
p. 305 “Female kiwis also stand out from other avians by having two ovaries, sharing nesting burrows with males… .” Robertson, H., and Heather, B. 2001. Hand Guide to the Birds of New Zealand. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K.: 168 p.
p. 306 “Although we normally think of parrots as subtropical–tropical birds flitting about in rainforests, keas live in alpine environments… .” Robertson and Heather (2001).
p. 306 “Male kakapos dig a series of half-meter (20 in) wide bowl-like depressions that they use like megaphones to project their mating calls.” Powlesland, R.G., Lloyd, B.D., Best, H.A., and Merton, D.V. 2008. Breeding biology of the Kakapo Strigops habroptilus on Stewart Island, New Zealand. Ibis, 134: 361-373.
p. 307 “Bird tracks can be divided into four main categories based on overall form, all of which are derived variations of theropod dinosaur feet: anisodactyl, palmate, totipalmate, and zygodactyl.” Bird tracks actually can be further subdivided on the basis of differences in foot anatomy, but for the sake of simplicity, this four-fold classification for their tracks works well, summarized by Elbroch and Marks (2001).
p. 308 “Bird trackway patterns fall into five behavioral groupings: diagonal walking (or running), hopping, skipping, standing, and flying.” (1) Elbroch and Marks (2001). (2) Martin (2013).
p. 310 “Thus, despite having anatomies that differ from Mesozoic dinosaurs, it is no wonder that dinosaur ichnologists still turn to birds … as their default models for how bipedal dinosaurs moved and made tracks.” Farlow et al. (2012).
p. 310 “In a 2013 study, paleontologists using CT scans of non-avian and avian theropod skulls (including that of Archaeopteryx) suggested… .” Balanoff, A.M., Bever, G.S., Rowe, T.B., and Norell, M.A. 2013. Evolutionary origins of the avian brain. Nature, 2013; published online before print version, DOI: 10.1038/nature12424.
p. 310 “Based on other anatomical traits, like long fingers with claws, other small feathered theropods, such as the Late Jurassic Scansoriopteryx (Epidendrosaurus) and Epidexipteryx of China, look like they were better adapted for climbing trees… .” (1) Some people consider Scansoriopteryx and Epidendrosaurus as synonymous, in which different names are used for the same genus of dinosaur. The original article naming it was by Czerkas and Yuan (2002), mentioned in the endnotes for Chapter 4. (2) Zhang et al. (2008), also cited in Chapter 4.
p. 310 “However, a few feathered theropods were far too big to have either flown or climbed trees, such as the Early Cretaceous Yutyrannus huali. …” Xu, X., Wang, K., Zhang, K., Ma, Q., Xing, L., Sullivan, C., Hu, D., Cheng, S., and Wang, S. 2012. A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China. Nature, 484: 92-95.
p. 312 “Nothing quite says ‘flight’ like a right–left pair of bird tracks with no other tracks in front of or behind them.” Martin (2013).
p. 312 “At first only two hypotheses were offered, with pithy summary titles: ‘ground up’ and ‘trees down.’” Martin (2006).
p. 313 “Called the ‘wing-assisted incline running’ (WAIR) hypothesis, the researchers who developed this model—mostly Kenneth Dial and his colleagues… .” (1) Dial, K.P. 2003. Wing-assisted incline running and the evolution of flight. Science, 299: 402-405. (2) Dial, K.P., Randall, R.J., and Dial, T.R. 2006. What use is half a wing in the ecology and evolution of birds? BioScience, 56: 437-445.
p. 313 “However, some Early Cretaceous (about 120-million-ye
ar-old) smallshorebird tracks from Korea, reported by Amanda Falk and others in 2009… .” (1) Falk, A.R. 2009. Interpreting Behavior from Early Cretaceous Bird Tracks and the Morphology of Bird Feet and Trackways. Unpublished M.S. thesis, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas: 140 p. (2) Falk, A.R., Hasiotis, S.T., and Martin, L.D. 2010. Feeding traces associated with bird tracks from the Lower Cretaceous Haman Formation, Republic of Korea. Palaios 25: 730-741.
p. 313 “In 2013, Pat Vickers-Rich, Tom Rich, and I interpreted two of three closely associated anisodactyl tracks from Early Cretaceous rocks of Victoria, Australia as bird tracks, with the third coming from a nonavian theropod.” Martin et al. (2013).
p. 314 “I first noticed this phenomenon during a hot summer in 2004 while walking along the edge of a pond on San Salvador Island, Bahamas.” Martin, A.J. 2005. Avian tracks as initiators of mudcracks: models for similar effects of nonavian theropods? Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 25 [Supplement to No. 3]: 89A.
p. 314 “In the summer of 2007, while doing field work at a dinosaur dig site on the North Slope of Alaska, I noticed bird tracks … in the muddy patches of a river floodplain.” Martin (2009b).
p. 315 “The same apparent causal relationship between theropod tracks and mudcracks shows up in Early Jurassic rocks of southwestern Utah, in the same strata holding thousands of dinosaur swim-tracks… .” Milner et al. (2006).
p. 315 “Examples of scrape nests are those of penguins or some shorebirds, such as oystercatchers (species of Haematopus) or plovers (mostly species of Pluvialis and Charadrius), which use their feet to scratch out slight depressions into which they deposit a few eggs.” Martin (2013).
p. 315 “The largest bald-eagle nest yet measured was 3 m (10 ft) wide, 6 m (20 ft) deep, and weighed more than two tons.” Largest Bird’s Nest, Guinness Book of World Records: http://www.guinnessworldrecords. com/records-10000/largest-birds-nest/
p. 315 “Unlike the … nests people may normally see in urban settings, these nests are made collectively, shared, and reused by hundreds of weaver birds.” Crook, J.H. 1963. A comparative analysis of nest structure in the weaver birds (Ploceinae). Ibis, 105: 238-262.
p. 316 “Not to be outdone, the mallee fowl (Leipoa ocellata) of Australia constructs gigantic incubation mounds for its eggs.” Weathere, W.W., Seymour, R.S., and Baudinette, R.V. 1993. Energetics of mound-tending behaviour in the malleefowl, Leipoa ocellata (Megapodiidae). Animal Behaviour, 45: 333-341.
p. 316 “Although bird nests are almost as diverse as birds themselves, they can be placed into eight basic kinds, based on where they are located or their overall shape: scrape, platform, crevice, cup (or saucer), spherical, pendant, cavity, burrow, and mound.” (1) Elbroch and Marks (2001). (2) Martin (2013).
p. 316 “The earliest known dinosaur nests, made by the Early Jurassic sauropodomorph Massospondylus of South Africa, were definitely on ground surfaces.” Reisz et al. (2012).
p. 316 “At the other end of the Mesozoic Era, Late Cretaceous Maiasaura, Troodon, and titanosaur nests were bowl-like depressions surrounded by raised rims.” Varricchio (2011).
p. 316 “A burrow entombing the small Cretaceous ornithopod Oryctodromeus and two of its offspring may or may not have been a nest site, although it was likely used as a den for raising its young.” Varricchio et al. (2007).
p. 316 “Moreover, based on dinosaur egg porosities, nearly all were likely partially buried… .” This statement is based on a personal correspondence with David Varricchio in December 2013, but also is the main point of this article: Deeming, D.C. 2006. Ultrastructural and functional morphology of eggshells supports the idea that dinosaur eggs were incubated buried in a substrate. Palaeontology, 49: 171-185.
p. 317 “In one instance, egg predation from feral hogs on a Georgia barrier island was so pervasive that wild turkeys began nesting in the trees there.” Fletcher, W.O., and Parker, W.A. 1994. Tree nesting by wild turkeys on Ossabaw Island, Georgia. The Wilson Bulletin, 106: 562. p. 317 “At least one vase-shaped structure described from a petrified log from central Europe, dating from the Miocene Epoch (about 23 to 5 mya), is remarkably similar to woodpecker nests.” MikulaÅLš, R., and Zasadil, B. 2004. A probable fossil bird nest, ?Eocavum isp., from the Miocene wood of the Czech Republic. 4th International Bioerosion Workshop, Prague, Czech Republic, Abstracts Book: 49-51.
p. 318 “In North America, belted kingfishers (Megaceryle alcyon), bank swallows (Riparia riparia), and rough-winged swallows (Stelgidopteryx serripennis) burrow into soft, sandy bluffs adjacent to rivers or other bodies of water for their nesting and raising of young.” (1) Elbroch and Marks (2001). (2) Martin (2013).
p. 318 “In Europe, Africa, and elsewhere in the world, all species of beeeaters make bank burrows, sometimes by the thousands at nesting sites.” Casas-CrivilleÅL, A., and Valera, F. 2005. The European bee-eater (Merops apiaster) as an ecosystem engineer in arid environments. Journal of Arid Environments, 60: 227-238.
p. 318 “The Atlantic puffin (Fratercula arctica) of North America digs lengthy burrows… .” Hornung, M. 1982. Burrows and burrowing of the puffin (Fratercula arctica). Bangor Occasional Paper 10. Institute of Terrestrial Ecology, Bangor, Maine: 1-30.
p. 318 “… the little penguin (Eudyptula minor) of Australia and New Zealand, as well as the Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) of southern South America, also excavate burrows.” (1) Dann, P. 1991. Distribution, population trends and factors influencing the population size of Little Penguins Eudyptula minor on Phillip Island, Victoria. Emu, 91: 263-272. (2) Stokes, D.L., and Boersma, P.D. 1991. Effects of substrate on the distribution of magellanic penguin (Sphenicus magellanicus) burrows. The Auk, 108: 923-933.
p. 318 “Imagine carrying out a mouthful of sediment at a time or scratching with your feet to make a tunnel many times longer than your body: like The Shawshank Redemption, but without even the benefit of a little rock hammer.” Spoiler alert if you have never seen the movie The Shawshank Redemption (1994), starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman: one of the main characters, Andy Dufrense (Robbins)—wrongfully imprisoned for a crime he did not commit—breaks out of prison by chipping away at his cell wall with a small geologic hammer for years, making a long tunnel that allowed his escape.
p. 319 “For example, burrowing owls may take over appropriately sized mammal or gopher-tortoise burrows.” Martin, D.J. 1973. Selected aspects of burrowing owl ecology and behavior. The Condor, 75: 446-456.
p. 319 “Rough-winged swallows might usurp kingfisher burrows, and viceversa.” Martin (2013).
p. 319 “A male–female pair of Atlantic puffins, which normally mate for life, might return to the same burrow they used the previous year for nesting… .” Creelman, E., and Storey, A.E. 1991. Sex differences in reproductive behavior of Atlantic puffins. The Condor, 93: 390-398.
p. 319 “Complicating these underground neighborhoods is another bird, the Manx shearwater (Puffinus puffinus), which also nests in burrows… .” James, P.C. 1986. How do Manx shearwaters Puffinus puffinus find their burrows? Ethology, 71: 287-294.
p. 320 “Extreme examples are hummingbirds, some of which can produce thousands of wing beats per minute, or Arctic terns (Sterna paradisaea)… .” (1) Kircher, J.C. 1999. Neotropical Companion: An Introduction to the Animals, Plants, and Ecosystems of the New World Tropics. Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey: 451 p. (2) Egevang, C., Stenhouse, I.J., Phillips, R.A., Petersen, A., Fox, J.W., and Silk, J.R.D. 2010. Tracking of Arctic terns Sterna paradisaea reveals longest animal migration. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107: 2078-2081.
p. 320 “For instance, sandpipers do double taps—bang-bang—which leave distinctive two-holed patterns. In contrast, plovers keep their beaks on a beach surface while running along at high speed, making a more continuous and connected series of holes.” (1) Elbroch and Marks (2001). (2) Martin (2013).
p. 321 “With clams, oysters, and other bivalves, more subtle traces of bird predation might be on the shells themselves.”
Martin (2013).
p. 322 “In urban environments of Japan, carrion crows (Corvus corone) … place these on the crosswalks of busy streets for cars to run over and break.” Nihei, Y. 1995. Variations of behavior of carrion crows Corvus corone using automobiles as nutcrackers. Japan Journal of Ornithology, 44: 21-35.
p. 322 “Insect-eating birds, such as grackles or starlings, systematically insert their beaks into soil or ground vegetation to find their food. Northern flickers in particular are both persistent and insidious in their ground probing.” Elbroch and Marks (2001).
p. 322 “Seeing that ant eating has been proposed as a lifestyle for some theropods, such as the Late Cretaceous Xixianykus zhangi of China… .” Xu, X., Wang, D.-Y., Sullivan, C., Hone, D.W.E., Han, F.-L., Yan, R.-H., and Du, F.-M. 2010. A basal parvicursorine (Theropoda: Alvarezsauridae) from the Upper Cretaceous of China. Zootaxa, 2413: 1-19.
p. 324 “Peacocks, in order to show off the full extent of their tail feathers, perform a slow pirouette, often defining a tight circle.” For one of the most exquisite descriptions of a peacock strutting its stuff, I recommend reading Living with a Peacock, written by famed Southern gothic writer Flannery O’Connor. Her essay was originally published in Holiday magazine, September 1961, but also was in one of her anthologies (Mystery and Manners, 1969) under the title The King of Birds.
p. 324 “Male plovers also make distinctive pre-mating trackways by high stepping (also called ‘marking time’) and placing one foot directly in front of the other.” Elbroch and Marks (2001).
p. 324 “Sometimes nicknamed the ‘amorous architects,’ male bowerbirds build a variety of structures… .” Frith, C.B., and Frith, D.W. 2004. The Bowerbirds: Ptilonorhynchidae. Oxford University Press, Oxford, U.K.: 508 p.
p. 325 “Some bowerbirds even use perspective in their handiwork … the only examples of such artistic renderings known outside of humans.” Endler, J.A. 2012. Bowerbirds, art and aesthetics: are bowerbirds artists and do they have an aesthetic sense? Communicative and Integrative Biology, 5: 281-283.
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