Beak sizes increase, and body sizes decrease - but why? How we are slowly unravelling the mystery behind changing body shapes in Australian birds.
Articles on Bird evolution
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Reconstructing the demise of New Zealand’s extinct moa can help conserve the country’s remaining flightless birds, which are retreating to the same final places - cold, isolated mountaintops.
The extinction of the dinosaurs sparked an explosion of bird species, according to the largest-ever study of bird genetics.
Just as Darwin’s finches evolved specialised beaks to target prey, 3D modelling of 61 museum specimens reveals albatross beaks vary in size and shape for different diets. They can also drink seawater.
In birds, big brains aren’t associated with living in large social groups – instead, they’re linked to long stints of parental feeding.
The feet of a bird tell us a lot about its life. Newly described, the fossil feet of the ancestors of modern birds reveal how superbly adapted they were to their world.
It’s still not known exactly how female birds produce such colourful and intricately-patterned eggs. But we do have some theories about the survival advantage this provides.
Archaehierax sylvestris, whose remains have been unearthed in the arid South Australian outback, was the apex predator in a lush prehistoric forest filled with marsupials and waterfowl.
When the dinosaurs went extinct, some species took over the world. Adaptability, not survivability, explains why.
From choosing a compatible personality to sharing childcare equally, many Australian birds have mastered the art of successful relationships.
While a week can be a long time in politics, palaeontology typically moves more sedately, in keeping with its subject matter (the slow progression of the aeons). But one area of fossil research is seeing…
Cuckoos aren’t the kind of parents you’d want. They never raise their young ones, leaving that job to other birds. They achieve this by laying their eggs in other expectant birds’ nests, who treat them…
Spectacular transitional fossils, many from northern China, provide overwhelming evidence that dinosaurs evolved into birds and thus didn’t all perish when the deadly meteorite struck at the end of the…
What is it that makes rockstars so attractive to the opposite sex? Turns out Charles Darwin had it pegged hundreds of years ago – and it has a lot to do with peacocks. In The Descent of Man, and Selection…
Ratites – a group of flightless birds including the emu, ostrich and extinct moa – were long believed to have evolved from a single flightless ancestor, but research published today in Molecular Biology…
Top contributors
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Senior Research Scientist, South Australian Museum; Flinders University
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Lecturer in Evolutionary Biology and Zoology, Queensland University of Technology
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Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto
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Research fellow, Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University; Estación Biológica de Doñana (EBD-CSIC)
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Consultant psychiatrist and PhD candidate, Deakin University
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Teaching Associate, Monash University
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Professor of Global Change Ecology, Adelaide University
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DECRA Fellow, UNSW
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Senior Lecturer in Ecology and Evolution, Adelaide University
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Lecturer in Palaeontology, Flinders University
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Associate Professor in Vertebrate Palaeontology, Flinders University
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PhD Candidate, Wildlife Biologist, Macquarie University
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Emeritus Professor in Animal Behaviour, University of New England
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Palaeontologist, Earth Science Faculty, University of New England
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Professor of Molecular Evolution, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney