Biomedical Ephemera, or: A Frog for Your Boils

Juvenile Secretary Bird - Sagittarius serpentarius

Secretary bird chicks are the cutest! They're altricial birds, and spend about 40 days being fed by their parents, after which they tear up their own parent-delivered reptiles within the nest. After about 65-80 days, they start to fly (fledge), and are taught by both parents how to hunt soon after that. By the end of their fourth month, they generally live independently of their parents.

Faune de la Sénégambie. Alphonse Tremeau de Rochebrune, 1883-1887.

Check out these awesome dinosaurs. All pretty and baller and songbirdy and stuff!

Yup, birds are dinos. There are "avian dinosaurs" (Saurischia), which have hips that have legs sticking straight out underneath them, and "non-avian dinosaurs" (Ornithischia - confusingly, translates as "bird-hipped"), which have legs that splayed out to the sides. Birds first appeared during the Jurassic period, 150 million years ago, and they're the only surviving member of the Dinosauria clade.

All carnivorous dinosaurs were warm-blooded, and were Saurischians. One of the two primary herbivorous dinosaur lines is also Saurischian - the Sauropodopmorpha (including Apatosaurus, Diplodocus, and Argentinosaurus) branched off around 230 mya, but well-known dinosaurs such as triceratops and stegosaurus are comparatively unrelated to modern birds.

Birds: The Late Evolution of Dinosaurs.

Dinobuzz: Are birds really dinosaurs? Images:

Giant Heron and Sea Eagle Pied Hornbill, Andean Condor, Leadbeater's Cockatoo xkcd: Birds and Dinosaurs Ostrich, Weaver Birds Rock Penguin, Roseate Spoonbill, Greater Flamingo Wild Life of the World. Richard Lydekker, 1916.