What adaptations do birds have that help them with flight?
1 Answer
Apart from wings, birds have evolved several other adaptations to improve efficiency when flying.
Explanation:
Their bodies are streamlined to help, overcome air resistance.
The skeleton of birds are hollow to reduce their weight. Several unnecessary bones have been lost e.g. bony tails found in early birds.
The toothed jaws found in early birds has been replaced with a light weight beak.
The breast bone has been adapted into a large keel, suitable for the attachment of large powerful flight muscles.
The vanes of the feathers have barbules that zip the vanes of individual feathers together, giving the feathers the strength needed to hold the air foil. At high speeds the air foil function of the wing provides most of the lift needed to stay in flight.
The large amounts of energy required for flight have led to the evolution of an unidirectional pulmonary system to provide the large quantities of oxygen required for their high respiratory rates.
