![]() ![]() ![]() While the dominant avialans of the Mesozoic Era, the Enantiornithes, died out with all other non-avian dinosaurs, the Galloanserae (fowl) survived to become the first successful group of modern birds after the other dinosaurs died out.Īs opposed to the morphologically fairly conservative Galliformes, the Anseriformes have adapted to filter-feeding and are characterized by many autapomorphies related to this lifestyle. Fossils such as Vegavis indicate that essentially modern waterfowl, albeit belonging to a now- extinct lineage, were contemporaries of the non-avian dinosaurs. Anseriform young are able to swim and dive a few hours after hatching, and the hatchlings of mound-builders are fully feathered and even able to fly for prolonged distances as soon as they emerge from the nest mound.įrom the limited fossils that have to date been recovered, the conclusion that the Galloanserae were already widespread-the predominant group of modern birds-by the end of the Cretaceous is generally accepted nowadays. Galloanserae young are remarkably precocious.The mallards of North America, for example, are apparently mostly derived from some males which arrived from Siberia, settled down, and mated with American black duck ancestors. This is an important factor complicating mtDNA sequence-based research on their relationships. Guineafowl have successfully produced hybrids with domestic fowl and Indian peafowl, to which they are not particularly closely related as Galliformes go. Hybridization is extremely frequent in the Galloanserae, and genera, not usually known to produce viable hybrids in birds, can be brought to interbreed with comparative ease. ![]() The general public is probably most familiar with the polygynous habits of domestic chickens, where usually one or two roosters are kept with a whole flock of females. To ornithologists, this is particularly well known in dabbling ducks, where the males band together occasionally to "gang rape" unwilling females. While most living birds are monogamous, at least for a breeding season, many Galloanserae are notoriously polygynous or polyandrous.By comparison, birds of prey and pigeons rarely lay more than two eggs. Galloanserae are very prolific they regularly produce clutches of more than five or even more than 10 eggs, which is a lot for such sizeable birds.Many of these, however, are plesiomorphic for Neornithes as a whole, and are also shared with paleognaths. While they are quite diverse ecologically and consequently, in an adaptation to their different lifestyles, also morphologically and ethologically, some features still unite water- and landfowl. Many birds that are eaten by humans are fowl, including poultry such as chickens or turkeys, game birds such as pheasants or partridges, other wildfowl like guineafowl or peafowl, and waterfowl such as ducks or geese. Old English " fugol", West Frisian fûgel, Dutch vogel, German Vogel, Swedish fågel, Danish/Norwegian fugl), whilst 'poultry' is of Latin via Norman French origin the presence of an initial /p/ in poultry and an initial /f/ in fowl is due to Grimm's Law. The historic difference is due to the Germanic/Latin split word pairs characteristic of Middle English the word 'fowl' is of Germanic origin (cf. Nonetheless, the fact that the Galliformes and Anseriformes most likely form a monophyletic group makes a distinction between "fowl" and "poultry" warranted. In colloquial speech, however, the term "fowl" is often used near-synonymously with "poultry," and many languages do not distinguish between "poultry" and "fowl". Terminology Īs opposed to "fowl", " poultry" is a term for any kind of domesticated bird or bird captive-raised for meat, eggs, or feathers ostriches, for example, are sometimes kept as poultry, but are neither gamefowl nor waterfowl. This clade is also supported by morphological and DNA sequence data as well as retrotransposon presence/absence data. Anatomical and molecular similarities suggest these two groups are close evolutionary relatives together, they form the fowl clade which is scientifically known as Galloanserae (initially termed Galloanseri) ( Latin gallus (“rooster”) + ānser (“goose”)). Possible an early origin based on molecular clock Īustralian brushturkey ( Alectura lathami)įowl are birds belonging to one of two biological orders, namely the gamefowl or landfowl ( Galliformes) and the waterfowl ( Anseriformes). ![]()
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