Bird

  

C  O  N  D  O  R

The California Condor, above, rely on their exceptional

vision to find an animal carcass.  It has a very poor

sense of smell, unlike its cousin, the Turkey Vulture.

Vultures have both excellent vision as well as the

ability to smell decaying flesh up to twelve miles away.

The condor keeps tabs on the vultures in the area

and is tipped off by their behavior when they pick up

the scent of a carcass.  The condor will follow their

descent to the food below and insist on its share

of the find.

B  E  A  K

 Every bird species has a beak shaped to best suit its diet.

A bird with a bill to crack nuts is going to have a beak

that crushes like a pair of pliers while an eagle or hawk

has a sharp, hooked beak that cuts and shreds food

into fork and knife-sized bites.  A nectar feeder has a

bill shaped like a straw.

The shape of a bird's bill reveals the animal's lifestyle.

 

B  L  I  N  K

 You are busy flying here and there when, suddenly,

something flies into your eye.  You have no hands

to rub your eye and you cannot afford to fly blinded,

even for a moment.  What you need is a see-through

eyelid that will not only sweep aside bothersome debris

but will also provide for your everyday blinking needs.

Your normal, outermost eyelid is used only to 

lower the blinds for sleeping.

C  H  I  C  K  S

 Naked young ones in their nest, blind and helpless.

They know just enough to open their mouths wide

when a parent hops onto the rim of the nest.

Dinnertime.  It takes about a month of intense,

parental care before these nestlings become

somewhat independent.  These are songbirds.

They nest in trees, safe from the grasp of many

predators that roam the ground below.

The nest of a duck hugs the ground.

Same with geese and chickens.

Their young ones are covered in down feathers

the moment they hatch.  Their eyes work fine

and they can run about almost from the moment

they break free of their egg.  This is no time to 

dawdle.  Getting free from the nest is a 

matter of survival.  Hence, the precocious young.

 

 

C  U  C  K  O  O

The cuckoo mom slips into a warbler's nest,

kicks out one of the original eggs and lays

one of its own in its place.  It then quickly

flies away, undetected.  This all occurs 

in under ten seconds.  The result is another

species of bird dutifully raises the cuckoo

while cuckoo mom and dad go about their life.

This parasitic strategy is used by bird species

that are always on the move, unable to take

time to build a nest and raise a family.

Meanwhile the cuckoo has grown into a monster,

pushing the other nestlings from their home,

demanding one hundred percent of the food

mom and dad can provide.  For the next three

weeks Baby Huey will drive its warbler parents

to exhaustion, always demanding more food.

More food.

P  E  A  C  O  C  K

Peahens find it hard to resist peacocks sporting 

a tail that is of exaggerated length.  Things get

real interesting when Tex fans his rhinestone feathers

at the ladies.  Business is good but risky.

The problem is getting all this ornamental paraphernalia

off the ground when a hungry predator thunders into view.

This huge tail trait is detrimental to the animal's survival.

The Fisherian Runaway is the term given this

trait that self-perpetuates a looping genetic quirk.

 

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

 

OVER   EASY

 

 

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Vision

  

H U M A N      E Y E

The eye senses light and passes along this information

to the brain.  The mind's visual cortex receives these

impulses and constructs from them your view of reality.

The mind relies on prior experience to fill in gaps that

may occur in transmission.  It also collaborates with the

emotional center of the mind to provide editorial guidance.

Stumbling upon a rotting carcass covered in maggots

provides a splendid opportunity to respond with a 

gagging sense of revulsion.

B A L D      E A G L E 

 The eagle's high eye resolution enables it to detect

a rabbit from two miles away.  Its eye has five times 

the light detecting sensors found in the human eye.

The trade-off is that the eagle's world view is mostly

grey shaded monochromatic.  Their eyes are packed

with light and motion sensitive rods, leaving almost

no room for the eye's color-responding cones.

 

 

S U M A T R A N      T I G E R

The black and white nocturnal vision of the 

Sumatran Tiger enables it to ambush wild boar,

deer and monkey in the dim light of the rainforest

as well as the dark of night.  You cannot see it

but it definitely has its eyes on you.

W  H  A  L  E

 The left eye of the whale has an entirely different

watery view of the world from its opposite on the right.

They see most poorly in every direction, except for

in front.  They have no view of the direction they are

headed, explaining one reason why whales are known

to run into boats, buoys and fishing nets.  This applies

mostly to the plankton eating baleen whales, such as

the blue whale and gray whale.  

Predatory toothed whales use bat-like echolocation

to chase down their prey.

 

C  O  Y  O  T  E

 The eyes of a coyote are best suited for hunting in

the fullest of night and at dusk.  But their noses and

their ears play the more important role in the life of

this predator.  Their highly sensitive nose is best used

for tracking prey while their directional ears quickly

detect the slightest movement and the precise

direction from which it came.

B   A   T

 Bats are not blind.  They have eyes of varying ability.

Eye vision shows a bat its relationship with the horizon

and a heads up on large obstacles.  Echolocation

is fine-tuned, providing a detailed map of the space

around it, in which to navigate and to hunt prey.

Fruit bats fly during the day and identify fruit with the

aid of color.  Most have no capacity for echolocation.

Life forms generally don't waste scarce resources

on providing traits they don't need.

  

 

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

 

OVER   EASY

 

 

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Recent Life

  

H E S P E R O C Y O N    /    A N C I E N T     D O G     F A M I L Y

 The long muzzled face looks like a dog.

The stance could be shared with a cat.

Long neck.  Long tail.  Too long for a

modern dog.  The long torso allows for

considerable bend - like a greyhound.

The spring of the back adds to the animal's

propulsion.  The leg's backward knee is

actually the animal's ankle.  Beneath it

are the foot bones that never touch ground.

I C E     A G E     E L E P H A N T

 The Pleistocene extends back over two million years.

It was a time of fluctuating cooling and warming climates.

At its peak the last Ice Age covered 30 percent of the

globe's land area.  The fossils of this species of elephant

were uncovered in South America.  Elephants populated

the Earth everywhere.

  P A L A E O L O X O D O N     A N T I Q U U S

 Thirteen feet tall at the shoulders.

Just about fifteen tons on the scale.

It's hard to come up with the name

of a four-legged mammal that is larger.

The diverse and widespread family of

elephants is now reduced to a shrinking

pool, mostly domesticated or protected

inhabitants of government lands.

 A L L     I N     T H E     F A M I L Y

 Flat footed.  Every member of this family of species

uses its foot bones for feet, and not a leg extension.

The tree dwellers, Gibbons and Orangutan,

have arms that reach the full length of their body to

touch the ground.  The Gorilla's head is larger than the

human's but half of its skull is made up of a massive jaw. 

Only the human stance is totally vertical.  What truly

stands out, though, is the size of the human cranium,

where the brain resides, holding within its confines

the ability of reason and imagination.  

P R I M A T E     R E S O R T

This lakeside resort is representative of a Pleistocene

environment that primates of all sorts continue to favor.

It has a healthy forest, access to plenty of water as well

as providing a comfortable, mild climate for lounging.

It's ideal for gibbons, orangutans, chimpanzees and

gorillas.  Humans would add a Hyatt. 

S A B E R     T O O T H

 11,000 years ago Ice Age saber toothed tigers

inhabited what is now Los Angeles.  There were likely

human witnesses to the likes of these Saber Tooths,

Mammoth Elephants and Giant Sloughs.

It is in this arena that human awareness may first

separate these people from the ancients.

It is the isolation of human consciousness.

A new story begins.

*   *   *   *   * 

©  Tom Taylor

 

 OVER   EASY

 

 

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Asteroid

  

A G E    O F     D I N O S A U R S

The dinosaurs dominated the landscape for 

175 million years.  

 A S T E R O I D       I M P A C T

 One day 66 million years ago an asteroid 7 miles across

hit the Earth with the force of a speeding bullet.

The impact liquified rock twenty miles deep.

A mile high tsunami resulted.  Clouds of debris blocked

sunlight for years, destroying photosynthesis because

of the widespread plant die offs.  75% of all animal

species were swept from existence as starvation and

toxins took their toll.

T O X I C     V O L C A N T I C     G A S

 A second source of catastrophic death was also 

occurring in India as volcanic eruptions belched 

toxic gases, rich in sulfur, into the atmosphere.

The Earth's plants were not only cut off from

their ultimate energy bar, the sun, but the rain

came laced with chemicals only a refinery 

would appreciate.

 A G E     O F     M A M M A L S

The world is an empty place.

The noise and nuisances of life are gone.

Every life strategy you can think of is available

to those able to show up.  Recovery from mass extinction

begins immediately.  

First off, who are our survivors?

Generally speaking, small seed-eating animals

that can survive long periods without food. 

Eventually DNA fills this land of opportunities

with animal improvisations of every sort.

The species best engineered to meet the

circumstance wins out over time.  But

success is not guaranteed.  There are always

new challenges that must first be met.

E L E P H A N T     B I R D

 The large bipedal predator like T. rex was gone.

An ostrich type bird eventually developed enough

to occupy this long empty niche.  The musclebound 

legs say this bird would never get off the ground.

A small head with a bird bill replaces a massive

jaw filled with teeth as in the earlier dinosaur version.

Apparently useless wings replace clawed forearms.

No need for a tail as counterbalance to the weight

 of a heavy head and neck up front because of

its nonexistence.

This bird was a dinosaur with feathers.

P R I M A T E     A N C E S T O R

The oldest known species of primate lineage.

Purgatorius appears in the fossil record about

100,000 years following the Cretaceous - Paleocene

extinction.  It probably ate seeds and lived in trees

like a squirrel.  The prominent nose makes it

easier to track down buried seeds.

How horrified they might have been 

once they found out their distant offspring

would turn out to be apes.

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

 

OVER   EASY

 

 

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Pterosaur

  

H A T Z E G O P T E R Y X

They aren't dinosaurs but they grew up 

in the same neighborhood along side 

T. rex and Triceratops.  They were

lightweight and agile, and they had wings.

P T E R A N O D O N

 The first vertebrates to fly -  true sustained

flight.  Genetic roll of the dice stumbled upon

the solution by elongating the fourth finger

of the animal's forearm to enormous length.

Every Pterosaur had this basic wing 

arrangement.

L U S O G N A T H U S

 Tens of millions of years of uninterrupted tropical bliss

over most of the globe.  Life was good.

Everyone knew their place in the grand scheme of 

things.  Earthly paradise had become the law of nature.

P T E R O S A U R I A

The Crustaceous was a time of behemoths 

roaming the land.  Even the flying reptiles

the size of a giraffe were able to become

airborne despite packing the weight of 550 pounds.

 A R A M B O U R G L A N I A

 A number of Pterosaur species had developed

wings that also served as forelegs.  This approach

could provide a good living for those prone to 

browse among the brush for small animals.

 

K A R I R I D R A C O

 The brain made up in efficiency what it lacked

  in size.  The area set aside for flight

control had a highly specialized division of labor.

Organization proved superior in performance

when compared with general purpose memory.

This entire class of animals died alongside 

dinosaurs when an asteroid the size of 

Mount Everest hit the Earth 66 million

years ago.

*   *   *   *   *

©  Tom Taylor

OVER   EASY

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