I found that bird's colorful plumages reflect their needs for foods and enviroments (1 Viewer)

[Andy Hurley]

Your 'broken English' slipped a bit there.

I know of no duck that feeds on corpses ( or coffins, if that was a typo ) and, I'm almost sure the rest of us on here don't either. Which species would that be? ( Waits, with baited breath. Not. ).

Chris

I think he meant flesh eating from the Greek.
Have you ever seen Tufted Duck together with crocodiles? No? Its because they eat them and the crocs have to hide away on the lake bed. It also explains why they always dive for their flesh ration.

 

[chris butterworth]

I think he meant flesh eating from the Greek.
Have you ever seen Tufted Duck together with crocodiles? No? Its because they eat them and the crocs have to hide away on the lake bed. It also explains why they always dive for their flesh ration.

I think he really meant "I know big words". 8-P

Chris

 

[Andy Hurley]

Well I didn't being a peasant so I had to google it. I am actually quite amazed he deigns to talk to us considering the circles he is aspiring to.

 

[morninglight]

About if King eider eats river snail,
Chris said they do not live in the same regin, such as northern asia.
I checked the distrbution of the river snail or Viviparus. We can see
This genus is palaearctic in distribution,[2] and is known from the Jurassic to the recent periods.[3]
on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viviparus
Yet the palaearctic regin includes northern asia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaearctic
where king eider lives.

 

[chris butterworth]

About if King eider eats river snail,
Chris said they do not live in the same regin, such as northern asia.
I checked the distrbution of the river snail or Viviparus. We can see
This genus is palaearctic in distribution,[2] and is known from the Jurassic to the recent periods.[3]
on this page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viviparus
Yet the palaearctic regin includes northern asia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaearctic
where king eider lives.

You actually are starting to do some research. :eek!: Congratulations on your discovery of the distribution of the molluscan family. Now you need to find out the habitat of the molluscs plus their exact distribution, correlate that with the habitat and distribution of the duck, including the inland breeding areas and see what the outcome is. Just saying they both occur in the Palearctic ( the ducks distribution is Holarctic BTW ) and presenting that as proof either woefully underestimates your view of our knowledge or shows that you are attempting to 'cherry pick' your facts. I'll give you a bit of help -
1. The Palearctic zoogeographical region contains many different biotomes. From the tundra to desert, from steppe to sub-tropical forest, from the northern face of the Himalaya to the edge of the Sahara.
2. The duck is rather specialised in it's habitat and choice of food.

I would be perfectly happy if you could prove me wrong as it would open a new area of research for me. There again, I could take a page out of your book and say that your 'proof ' should be 'overwritten' ( your choice of terminology ) and that I will wait for others, that know what they are talking about, to prove it. You have painted yourself into a corner with your constant refusals to answer questions and refusals to even contemplate that someone may know something that you hadn't thought of. No matter what 'proof' you come up with you will have to accept that we can use your, and I use this word in its very loosest sense, 'methodology' and you will have to live with it. :t: Looking forward to reading the results of your 'research'

Chris

BTW You appear to be running out of steam. Your initial surge of posts outlining your 'proofs' had slowed to a trickle, in fact you are appearing rather tired. Is the experiment coming to an end? Has the spoof turned out differently to what yo expected? Are you getting close to admitting you may have been pushing a false proposition? Are you being caught out a few too many times for comfort?

C

 

[morninglight]

1. Yes
2. I'll forgive you for doubting my abilities, yet again. ( Theres no need to thank me ). Yes. And between Swans, sheldgeese, shelducks, Anser and Branta geese, Whistling-ducks, dabbling ducks, diving ducks, marine ducks and the individual genera and species. :t:
3. The molluscs that King Eider eat - are marine bivalves. Not lacustrine snails.
4. King Eider is a marine duck and a rare vagrant to China, as it is to the Okhotsk coast of Hokkaido ( which is closer to the east Asian wintering grounds of coastal Kamchatka. BTW As Heilongjiang borders the Amur region of Russia I'd expect the molluscan fauna to be the same, wouldn't you? ( I actually know they are - remember I mentioned post #357. You should have checked. :t: )

These may help with your understanding of the distribution of King Eider:-
http://www.birds.cornell.edu/clementschecklist/
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_birds_of_China#Ducks.2C_geese_and_swans
http://www.bsc-eoc.org/avibase/avibase.jsp?region=cn&pg=checklist&list=clements

Chris

There is a map for distribution of the king eider:
http://baike.baidu.com/view/3496658.htm
The text shows bigger extend up to Himalaya mountains and the Hwai River region.

 

[chris butterworth]

There is a map for distribution of the king eider:
http://baike.baidu.com/view/3496658.htm
The text shows bigger extend up to Himalaya mountains and the Hwai River region.

It would be easier for all concerned if you would just post the section showing the purported map showing the range of King Eider instead of a page in Chinese. This is a forum in which English is the default language and the majority of us, including myself, do not read Chinese. Alternatively, I could reply in kana and see how you get on. :t:
To return to your claim that King Eider distribution extends as far south as the Himalaya - ludicrous.

Chris

 

[Simon Wates]

There is a map for distribution of the king eider:
http://baike.baidu.com/view/3496658.htm
The text shows bigger extend up to Himalaya mountains and the Hwai River region.

That map you have posted shows the most ridiculously flawed distribution map I have ever seen! They have coloured whole countries because of one or two vagrants.

 

[fugl]

That map you have posted shows the most ridiculously flawed distribution map I have ever seen! They have coloured whole countries because of one or two vagrants.

Sure, but so what? What's relevant here is not the present distribution but the distribution many millennia ago when the ur-female made her choice and the whole process kicked off. And good luck with working that distribution out!

 

[morninglight]

This webpage
http://www.birdingbirds.com/encyclopedia/king-eider/
tells that the king eider's
---------------------
Breeding habits.These ducks breed in the freshwater ponds and lakes in Alaska and the Arctic Islands of Canada. Because their breeding grounds are so remote, their down is not collected as extensively as that of the "Common Eider".
-------------------
These places should have revier snails.

There is also interesting description:
-------------------------
General description.The "King Eider" is a uniquely and ornately plumaged sea duck. He emerges from the artist's palate with a periwinkle crown and nape, pale green cheeks and red bill. His back is black and breast, pure white. These are deep diving ducks, and have been caught in nets as far as 150 feet below the surface of the water.
-------------------
The periwinkle is form similar to the river snail.
So your rebutation is harder now.

 

[Mike in Cumbria]

These places should have revier snails.

There is also interesting description:
-------------------------
General description.The "King Eider" is a uniquely and ornately plumaged sea duck. He emerges from the artist's palate with a periwinkle crown and nape, pale green cheeks and red bill. His back is black and breast, pure white. These are deep diving ducks, and have been caught in nets as far as 150 feet below the surface of the water.
-------------------
The periwinkle is form similar to the river snail.
So your rebutation is harder now.

Hmm. Periwinkle in this case means the colour, although no-one would dispute that King Eiders eat periwinkles.

 

[chris butterworth]

This webpage
http://www.birdingbirds.com/encyclopedia/king-eider/
tells that the king eider's
---------------------
Breeding habits.These ducks breed in the freshwater ponds and lakes in Alaska and the Arctic Islands of Canada. Because their breeding grounds are so remote, their down is not collected as extensively as that of the "Common Eider".
-------------------
These places should have revier snails.

There is also interesting description:
-------------------------
General description.The "King Eider" is a uniquely and ornately plumaged sea duck. He emerges from the artist's palate with a periwinkle crown and nape, pale green cheeks and red bill. His back is black and breast, pure white. These are deep diving ducks, and have been caught in nets as far as 150 feet below the surface of the water.
-------------------
The periwinkle is form similar to the river snail.
So your rebutation is harder now.

1. The freshwater ponds and 'lakes' are formed by meltwater on a substrate of permafrost and lack a molluscan fauna. Your use of the word 'should' says it all, you haven't a clue about the subject but are, yet again, guessing.


2. The word 'periwinkle' refers to the pale violet colour, not molluscs of the marine genera Littorina . Just because marine, freshwater and terrestrial snails 'look' similar it doesn't mean they can be substituted for each other.

Refutation getting soooooooooo much easier. :t:

Chris

 

[Simon Wates]

Sure, but so what? What's relevant here is not the present distribution but the distribution many millennia ago when the ur-female made her choice and the whole process kicked off. And good luck with working that distribution out!

Yes Fugl - now I only butted in to support the tireless Chris o

 

[Andy Hurley]

Sure, but so what? What's relevant here is not the present distribution but the distribution many millennia ago when the ur-female made her choice and the whole process kicked off. And good luck with working that distribution out!

And? Does that mean that the ur-female's preferences have remained genetically as the were? I.e. no further development? Or might they have continued their development, also with other genetic anomolies coming to the fore? Do we know what this so called ur-female's choice of mate looked like? AFAIK evolution is just that, the evolving of species to meet new criteria. Species that don't evolve with their enviroment, or changes to that environment, whether it is from new competition, a change in resources, etc, die out. As the ice retreated so did the birds, probably, and only after that, new species, molluscs included, spread/adapted to the newly uncovered territories. Also, what happens to rare individual migrants that are blown off course? Sure, every few years there is a extremely rare sighting, somewhere, but do these survive? Every rule has exceptions, but the exceptions do not disprove the rule, they become a new sub-species and ultimately a new species, or fail completely.

 

[lazza]

Why do I not want to argue with some aethetic researchers?
They define the beauty sense as a sense only mankind has. And then, they prove that animal do not have beauty sense by the definition.
But I believe that linguistic meaning depends on how we use language in daily life.
I cannot accept that definition.

OK, please provide me the evidence that animals have a sense of beauty. And please provide to me evidence that an animals perception of beauty has parallels with the human sense of beauty.

I'm a scientist (although I admit I'm no psychologist or biologist), so I have an open mind to new theories provided that sufficient evidence is provided, and would love to understand your theory better and even to acknowledge that it might be correct. But so far, no evidence you have provided is remotely accurate, convincing or rigorous. Whether you like it or not, that is how science works.

If you want us to believe your theory - and I am not convinced that this is actually what you want - then you need to provide better evidence. To put forward ideas and proposals for a link between a bird and its preferred food, and then to openly admit you don't even know anything about the bird or whether it really does have a preference for that food (and then to further state that it's not your role to even find out) is just appalingly poor science. :C

 

[chris butterworth]

I noted that, under the section marked 'shellfish' on the page you posted as evidence http://www.birdingbirds.com/encyclopedia/king-eider/ that they have included Common (sic) Pigeon and Fulmar as eating shellfish. There are at least 18 species included in the list that either are polyphagous or very rarely, if at all, eat shellfish. If, for the sake of argument, I accept that you have been speaking about marine molluscs and not fresh water ones ( never mind what you've actually posted ), and that the confusion was due to your 'broken English' ( something I'm slightly dubious about, given the evidence ) then why do the other 3 species of Eider, Long-tailed Duck, and the Scoters, who all select the same food items, who are all generally classed as boreal / Arctic marine ducks, look so spectacularly different? Same prey preference, same biotomes so why aren't they much more similar? We still have your claims for Wood and Mandarin Duck, Temmincks Tragopan, the problem of parrots, other than Macaws, that use clay licks, lacking bare cheeks, Woodpeckers and their alleged 'tunnel' patterns ( as well as why a single species of anteating mammal would develop, in your eyes, such a pattern - you were the one to bring it up ) and others to work through.
Bring them on.


Chris

 

[fugl]

And? Does that mean that the ur-female's preferences have remained genetically as the were? I.e. no further development? Or might they have continued their development, also with other genetic anomolies coming to the fore? Do we know what this so called ur-female's choice of mate looked like? AFAIK evolution is just that, the evolving of species to meet new criteria. Species that don't evolve with their enviroment, or changes to that environment, whether it is from new competition, a change in resources, etc, die out. As the ice retreated so did the birds, probably, and only after that, new species, molluscs included, spread/adapted to the newly uncovered territories. Also, what happens to rare individual migrants that are blown off course? Sure, every few years there is a extremely rare sighting, somewhere, but do these survive? Every rule has exceptions, but the exceptions do not disprove the rule, they become a new sub-species and ultimately a new species, or fail completely.

"And" yourself! The tone suggests you're taking issue with something I've said or implied in my brief to-the-point posting but I'm damned if I can figure out what it is. All I thought I was doing was making a pedantic little correction to an overly sweeping statement. I certainly wasn't defending morninglight's views on snails and eiders, if that's what you're thinking.

 

[chris butterworth]

Hmm. Periwinkle in this case means the colour, although no-one would dispute that King Eiders eat periwinkles.

I would. Where is the proof that King Eider eat any member of the Apocynaceae family, never mind any of the Vinca genus.

Chris

 

[chris butterworth]

Yes Fugl - now I only butted in to support the tireless Chris o

Thanks Simon. :t: || I think Fugls stirring it, just a little. ( Baaaaaaad mod. )

Chris

 

[Mike in Cumbria]

I would. Where is the proof that King Eider eat any member of the Apocynaceae family, never mind any of the Vinca genus.

Chris

Very funny! :t:

I could provide a photo of a whole herd of them grazing on Vinca major in my garden if that would help.