37-512: Toroa can refer to: Northern royal albatross Southern royal albatross Toroa (ferry) , an Auckland, New Zealand passenger ferry Toroa (leafhopper) , a leafhopper genus in the tribe Erythroneurini Toroa (sculpture) , a 1989 sculpture by Peter Nicholls in Dunedin, New Zealand Toroa, captain of the Mātaatua waka Topics referred to by
74-556: A breeding range of 8 km (3.1 sq mi). 6,500 to 7,000 pairs breed on the Chatham Islands annually along with 60 pairs at Taiaroa Head, for an estimated total of 20,000 birds, although this is a 2012 estimate. 2022 estimates place the count at 17,000 birds. In 1985, their main breeding grounds on the Chatham Islands were badly damaged by a series of intense storms and the resulting lack of nesting material has lowered their breeding success. Chicks and eggs of birds breeding on
111-473: A definition similar to "all theropods closer to birds than to Deinonychus ", with Troodon being sometimes added as a second external specifier in case it is closer to birds than to Deinonychus . Avialae is also occasionally defined as an apomorphy-based clade (that is, one based on physical characteristics). Jacques Gauthier , who named Avialae in 1986, re-defined it in 2001 as all dinosaurs that possessed feathered wings used in flapping flight , and
148-442: A group called Paraves . Some basal members of Deinonychosauria, such as Microraptor , have features which may have enabled them to glide or fly. The most basal deinonychosaurs were very small. This evidence raises the possibility that the ancestor of all paravians may have been arboreal , have been able to glide, or both. Unlike Archaeopteryx and the non-avialan feathered dinosaurs, who primarily ate meat, studies suggest that
185-470: A pink bill with a black cutting edge on the upper mandible , along with pale pink legs. The northern royal albatross can be distinguished from the southern at sea by its upper wings, the plumage of which are all dark compared to the large areas of white on the southern. The two species also differ in behavior. The northern royal albatross feeds on cephalopods , fish , crustaceans , salps , and carrion . Squids can make up 85% of their diet. They perform
222-406: A sister group, the order Crocodilia , contain the only living representatives of the reptile clade Archosauria . During the late 1990s, Aves was most commonly defined phylogenetically as all descendants of the most recent common ancestor of modern birds and Archaeopteryx lithographica . However, an earlier definition proposed by Jacques Gauthier gained wide currency in the 21st century, and
259-717: A time, sometimes for years, and rarely for life. Other species have breeding systems that are polygynous (one male with many females) or, rarely, polyandrous (one female with many males). Birds produce offspring by laying eggs which are fertilised through sexual reproduction . They are usually laid in a nest and incubated by the parents. Most birds have an extended period of parental care after hatching. Many species of birds are economically important as food for human consumption and raw material in manufacturing, with domesticated and undomesticated birds being important sources of eggs, meat, and feathers. Songbirds , parrots, and other species are popular as pets. Guano (bird excrement)
296-527: A very extensive mutual or group display, sometimes in the air or on the water. Once they form a bond, the displays lose extravagance. Breeding starts at eight years. They nest biennially and will build their nests on flat summits of the islands that they frequent. They prefer to be in grass or herbs, and their nest is a low mound of vegetation, mud, and feathers. A single egg is laid, in October or November, which takes both parents around 80 days to incubate. The chick
333-572: Is brooded for a month and is ready to fledge after around 240 days. Their colonies are denser than those of any other great albatross . Northern royal albatrosses nest on the Chatham Islands ( Forty-fours Island , Big Sister Island , and Little Sister Island ), Enderby Island in the Auckland Islands, and Taiaroa Head on the Otago Peninsula of New Zealand. The Taiaroa Head colony
370-533: Is called ornithology . Birds are feathered theropod dinosaurs and constitute the only known living dinosaurs . Likewise, birds are considered reptiles in the modern cladistic sense of the term, and their closest living relatives are the crocodilians . Birds are descendants of the primitive avialans (whose members include Archaeopteryx ) which first appeared during the Late Jurassic . According to recent estimates, modern birds ( Neornithes ) evolved in
407-447: Is dark speckling on the crown and rump. Its lower mantle and back are white with more black speckling than the crown, and it has dark black-brown upper wings with white flecks on its coverts . Its tail is white with a black-brown tip, as are its underwings. There is a black band behind the leading edge of its wings between the carpal joint and the tip. As they age, their head, back, rump, tail, and scapular region whiten. All ages have
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#1732887682047444-495: Is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Northern royal albatross Diomedea epomophora sanfordi ( Murphy , 1917) The northern royal albatross or toroa , ( Diomedea sanfordi ) is a large seabird in the albatross family . It was split from the closely related southern royal albatross as recently as 1998, though not all scientists support that conclusion and some consider both of them to be subspecies of
481-429: Is harvested for use as a fertiliser. Birds figure throughout human culture. About 120 to 130 species have become extinct due to human activity since the 17th century, and hundreds more before then. Human activity threatens about 1,200 bird species with extinction, though efforts are underway to protect them. Recreational birdwatching is an important part of the ecotourism industry. The first classification of birds
518-503: Is not considered a direct ancestor of birds, though it is possibly closely related to the true ancestor. Over 40% of key traits found in modern birds evolved during the 60 million year transition from the earliest bird-line archosaurs to the first maniraptoromorphs , i.e. the first dinosaurs closer to living birds than to Tyrannosaurus rex . The loss of osteoderms otherwise common in archosaurs and acquisition of primitive feathers might have occurred early during this phase. After
555-516: Is synonymous to Avifilopluma. † Scansoriopterygidae † Eosinopteryx † Jinfengopteryx † Aurornis † Dromaeosauridae † Troodontidae Avialae Based on fossil and biological evidence, most scientists accept that birds are a specialised subgroup of theropod dinosaurs and, more specifically, members of Maniraptora , a group of theropods which includes dromaeosaurids and oviraptorosaurs , among others. As scientists have discovered more theropods closely related to birds,
592-675: Is the only albatross colony found on a human-inhabited mainland in the Southern Hemisphere. When they are not breeding, northern royal albatrosses undertake circumpolar flights in the southern oceans, and in particular like the Humboldt Current and the Patagonian Shelf . Northern royal albatrosses are listed as an endangered species by the IUCN , and they have an occurrence range of 64,300,000 km (24,800,000 sq mi), with
629-530: Is used by many scientists including adherents to the PhyloCode . Gauthier defined Aves to include only the crown group of the set of modern birds. This was done by excluding most groups known only from fossils , and assigning them, instead, to the broader group Avialae, on the principle that a clade based on extant species should be limited to those extant species and their closest extinct relatives. Gauthier and de Queiroz identified four different definitions for
666-534: The Department of Conservation had eradicated feral cattle, rabbits, and mice from Enderby Island by 1993. Counting of individual birds has been made possible using 30-cm resolution imagery from the WorldView-3 satellite. Thanks to the efforts of L. E. Richdale , the colony on Taiaroa Head was protected by 1950. 1972 saw the first formal guided viewing of their breeding area, since 2001 more than 100,000 people visit
703-715: The Late Cretaceous and diversified dramatically around the time of the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event 66 million years ago, which killed off the pterosaurs and all non- ornithuran dinosaurs. Many social species preserve knowledge across generations ( culture ). Birds are social, communicating with visual signals, calls, and songs , and participating in such behaviour as cooperative breeding and hunting, flocking , and mobbing of predators. The vast majority of bird species are socially (but not necessarily sexually) monogamous , usually for one breeding season at
740-557: The Royal Albatross Centre annually to watch this species. It has become a tradition in Dunedin each year to chime the bells in the city's public buildings in celebration of the first bird to arrive back at the Taiaroa Head colony. Mantle (bird anatomy) Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves ( Latin: [ˈaveːs] ), characterised by feathers , toothless beaked jaws,
777-660: The Tiaojishan Formation of China, which has been dated to the late Jurassic period ( Oxfordian stage), about 160 million years ago. The avialan species from this time period include Anchiornis huxleyi , Xiaotingia zhengi , and Aurornis xui . The well-known probable early avialan, Archaeopteryx , dates from slightly later Jurassic rocks (about 155 million years old) from Germany . Many of these early avialans shared unusual anatomical features that may be ancestral to modern birds but were later lost during bird evolution. These features include enlarged claws on
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#1732887682047814-476: The laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart , and a strong yet lightweight skeleton . Birds live worldwide and range in size from the 5.5 cm (2.2 in) bee hummingbird to the 2.8 m (9 ft 2 in) common ostrich . There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 orders . More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species;
851-572: The royal albatross . Diomedea sanfordi breaks into Diomedea , referring to Diomedes , whose companions turned to birds, and sanfordi , in honor of Leonard Cutler Sanford (1868–1950), ornithologist, and trustee of the American Museum of Natural History . Albatrosses belong to the family Diomedeidae of the order Procellariiformes , along with shearwaters , fulmars , storm petrels , and diving petrels . They share certain identifying features. First, they have nasal passages that attach to
888-518: The South Island have also been preyed upon by introduced species , such as cats , bottle flies , and stoats . Finally, longline fishing is the biggest threat to this bird, even though it has been reduced. To help in the survival of this species, bird banding is underway, Taiaroa Head has predator control in effect during the breeding season, and there are no predators on the Chatham Islands. Enderby Island and Taiaroa Head are nature preserves, and
925-428: The appearance of Maniraptoromorpha, the next 40 million years marked a continuous reduction of body size and the accumulation of neotenic (juvenile-like) characteristics. Hypercarnivory became increasingly less common while braincases enlarged and forelimbs became longer. The integument evolved into complex, pennaceous feathers . The oldest known paravian (and probably the earliest avialan) fossils come from
962-509: The birds that descended from them. Despite being currently one of the most widely used, the crown-group definition of Aves has been criticised by some researchers. Lee and Spencer (1997) argued that, contrary to what Gauthier defended, this definition would not increase the stability of the clade and the exact content of Aves will always be uncertain because any defined clade (either crown or not) will have few synapomorphies distinguishing it from its closest relatives. Their alternative definition
999-665: The earliest members of Aves, is removed from this group, becoming a non-avian dinosaur instead. These proposals have been adopted by many researchers in the field of palaeontology and bird evolution , though the exact definitions applied have been inconsistent. Avialae, initially proposed to replace the traditional fossil content of Aves, is often used synonymously with the vernacular term "bird" by these researchers. † Coelurus † Ornitholestes † Ornithomimosauria † Alvarezsauridae † Oviraptorosauria Paraves Most researchers define Avialae as branch-based clade, though definitions vary. Many authors have used
1036-451: The first avialans were omnivores . The Late Jurassic Archaeopteryx is well known as one of the first transitional fossils to be found, and it provided support for the theory of evolution in the late 19th century. Archaeopteryx was the first fossil to display both clearly traditional reptilian characteristics—teeth, clawed fingers, and a long, lizard-like tail—as well as wings with flight feathers similar to those of modern birds. It
1073-523: The only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds . Wings, which are modified forelimbs , gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds , including ratites , penguins , and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds , have further evolved for swimming. The study of birds
1110-402: The outermost half) can be seen in the evolution of maniraptoromorphs, and this process culminated in the appearance of the pygostyle , an ossification of fused tail vertebrae. In the late Cretaceous, about 100 million years ago, the ancestors of all modern birds evolved a more open pelvis, allowing them to lay larger eggs compared to body size. Around 95 million years ago, they evolved
1147-528: The previously clear distinction between non-birds and birds has become blurred. By the 2000s, discoveries in the Liaoning Province of northeast China, which demonstrated many small theropod feathered dinosaurs , contributed to this ambiguity. The consensus view in contemporary palaeontology is that the flying theropods, or avialans , are the closest relatives of the deinonychosaurs , which include dromaeosaurids and troodontids . Together, these form
Toroa - Misplaced Pages Continue
1184-452: The same biological name "Aves", which is a problem. The authors proposed to reserve the term Aves only for the crown group consisting of the last common ancestor of all living birds and all of its descendants, which corresponds to meaning number 4 below. They assigned other names to the other groups. Lizards & snakes Turtles Crocodiles Birds Under the fourth definition Archaeopteryx , traditionally considered one of
1221-407: The same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Toroa . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Toroa&oldid=1153889053 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description
1258-545: The second toe which may have been held clear of the ground in life, and long feathers or "hind wings" covering the hind limbs and feet, which may have been used in aerial maneuvering. Avialans diversified into a wide variety of forms during the Cretaceous period. Many groups retained primitive characteristics , such as clawed wings and teeth, though the latter were lost independently in a number of avialan groups, including modern birds (Aves). Increasingly stiff tails (especially
1295-488: The upper bill called naricorns , although the nostrils on the albatross are on the sides of the bill. The bills of Procellariiformes are also unique in that they are split into between seven and nine horny plates. Finally, they produce a stomach oil made up of wax esters and triglycerides that are stored in the proventriculus . This is used against predators as well as an energy-rich food source for chicks and adults during their long flights. The northern royal albatross
1332-461: Was developed by Francis Willughby and John Ray in their 1676 volume Ornithologiae . Carl Linnaeus modified that work in 1758 to devise the taxonomic classification system currently in use. Birds are categorised as the biological class Aves in Linnaean taxonomy . Phylogenetic taxonomy places Aves in the clade Theropoda as an infraclass or a subclass, more recently a subclass. Aves and
1369-403: Was first described as Diomedea sanfordi by Robert Cushman Murphy , in 1917, based on a specimen from the Chatham Islands . The northern royal albatross is typically about 115 cm (45 in), weighs 6.2 to 8.2 kg (14–18 lb), and has a wingspan from 270 to 305 cm (106–120 in). The juvenile has a white head, neck, upper mantle , rump, and underparts. There
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