A new study has revealed how flight worthiness is negatively connected to fight-worthiness in birds. Researchers have succeeded in getting a better understanding of how the great diversity of life and earth came to be.
Bird's Contribution to Solving the Mysteries of Evolution
According to the research done by the University of Massachusetts Amherst, these two activities cannot take place at the same time, also the research shows that developing wings involves both sexual and natural selection.
According to Phys.org, other species like the dear, crabs, and even smaller species like the beetle are capable of performing both activities but the birds relatively cant.
To further explain this phenomenon, research was carried out on birds and their species to discover if there are any bird species that can do both activities and also how well they fly while performing both activities.
From the dataset that evaluates more than 10,000 species of birds, analysis showed only a small percentage of 1.7% do pack weapons in the form of bony spurs on their legs. The birds that fly without weapons tend to fly faster than birds that fly with bony spurs as these birds tend to struggle on-air while carrying these weapons.
The spur is a bony outgrowth in another part of the foot, specifically at the connection between the foot and the toe, covered in a sheath of horn and is referred to as the fourth toe. None flight birds like the domestic chicken and turkey mostly develop the metatarsal spurs.
According to research, these spurs are mostly developed in non-flight birds than flight birds and they are not used as weapon. They are mostly found in male species.
Also Read: Simple Steps You Can Do to Help Conserve Birds
Do Birds Have Specialized Weapons?
João C. T. Menezes, a graduate student in a program at UMass Amherst said: "Birds have such spectacular songs, plumage, and dances, but they mostly don't have specialized weapons. It's strange because dancing, singing, fancy feathers, and fighting are all ways of successfully obtaining a mate and often go together," according to Science Daily.
History has shown singing as one of the sexual activities done by birds to attract their mating partner along with mechanical sound production, displays of beauty, strength, and agonistic ability related to fighting.
Physical movements and dancing such as wing flaps and head dips are used to attract attention.
How Spurs Make Flying Base on Energy
These sexual selection activities due to evolutional changes might be affected as the bony spurs increase the intensity in-flight activities, decreases the ability of the bird to fly fast, and might also boost the risk of birds getting eaten by predators due to the reduction in flight speed.
It is quite difficult to state if this evolution might affect the birds negatively or positively but from the recent research, it seems its negativity counters a lot of positive impacts.
"This helps explain why birds have an amazing range of plumage, song, and dance, while almost totally lacking in the weaponry department," says Menezes.