BirdNote®
Falcons, Parrots, and the Tree of Life
Written by Bob Sundstrom
The Peregrine Falcon is a quintessential hen of prey. It has extremely specialised searching anatomy it shares with hawks and eagles, lengthy thought-about the falcon’s shut relations. There’s the eager eyesight, the lethal-looking hooked beak, and the robust, sharp, greedy talons. So it comes as a shocking shock that latest DNA analysis has perched the falcon closest on the evolutionary tree to parrots. Not eagles. [Mealy Parrot calls, http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/74981, 0.06-0.09.]
Scientists have puzzled for hundreds of years over how totally different teams of birds are associated. Did birds that look bodily alike, comparable to falcons and hawks, come up from a standard ancestor, or did they attain these similarities independently? This line of inquiry was given an immense increase in recent times when worldwide analysis crew unraveled the total genetic codes of 48 species of birds. Groundbreaking new findings are pouring forth, amongst them a newly revised evolutionary tree for birds that locations falcons [Peregrine Falcon call, ending in wing-flapping sound: http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/137573, 0.59-1.05] and parrots on adjoining branches. [Mealy Parrot calls, http://macaulaylibrary.org/audio/74981, 0.06-0.09.]
The hen genome analysis will seemingly generate new insights into the evolution of birds for years to return. So hear for extra tales in regards to the “tree of life” at BirdNote.org.
For BirdNote, I am Mary McCann.
###
Bird sounds supplied by The Macaulay Library of Pure Sounds on the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, New York. Peregrine Falcon name [137573] recorded by Gerrit Vyn. Mealy Parrot calls [74981] re-corded by Curtis A Marantz.
BirdNote’s theme music was composed and performed by Nancy Rumbel and John Kessler.
Producer: John Kessler
Govt Producer: Dominic Black
© 2015 Tune In to Nature.org February 2015/2022 Narrator: Mary McCann
ID# falcon-parrot-01-2015-01-04falcon-parrot-01
