---start--- avian 10/28/98 there will be quizzes on 11/11, 11/25, and 12/9, short answer, matching, T/F type quizzes, each takes about 15 minutes and counts for 1/3 of your grade. three handouts were given. bird ownership has been increasing. some of the macaws and other birds are very expensive,and people are very interested in keeping them healthy and "preserving their investment" if you will. of course, even those who didn't pay much for their bird may still have an emotional bond with their bird, and seek care. care for birds should not cost less than care for other animals! avian patients take as much or more of your time, you use the same diagnostic techniques, etc. cost to owner is pretty much the same. on selected refs handout: number 7 - avian medicine: principles and application, by Ritchie, Harrison, and Harrison, and number 8, Avian Medicine and Surgery by Alman, Clubb, Dorrestein and Quesenberry are both good. 10 is a new book that isn't as good as 7 and 8. #13 is small, good option for cheap people :) the class Aves is huge, containing 25 or 30 orders, and about 10,000 species of birds. luckily, a handful of species are kept as pets. just as in dog/cat breeds, there are species specific considerations. with birds, different ones have different personalities, there are species traits to consider, etc. [slide] major orders and families of extant birds. the font is way too small for me to read. antiformes(?) - ducks, geese, swans - many people own these falconiformes - rehabbers deal with these galliformes - pheasants, grouse, chickens, turkeys columbiformes -pigeons, doves psittasiformes - parrots, parakeets, lories passeriformes - largest group - canaries, finches, starlings, mynahs, crows slide: ostriches - these birds are used in zoos, meat farms, races slide: hummingbird -small bird slide: flamingo - eats small crustaceans,algae - filter feeder. large bird. slide: duck billed stork - weird looking bird - pelican-like thing. slide: montage of birds of passeriformes type - finches finches used to be a really popular pet. that fancy has dropped off a lot over past 12 yrs or so, but these birds were raised for color, song, etc. they fit well into homes b/c need small enclosure, do well with small area, are basically seed eaters (not all birds should eat seeds!) (psittacine nutrition is being studied now) (finches still mainly seed eaters - a little green stuff or fruit ok,but not too much; there are some new pelleted foods too that are balanced). always keep nutritional needs in mind. slide: canary up close. how does the molt of a passerine differ from molt in a parakeet or parrot? passerines have heavy molt - cage will be covered with feathers, downy feathers and contour feathers. it happens almost overnight. influenced heavily by light, temperature. psittacines rarely drop a lot of feathers unless there are extreme environmental conditions - they drop a few feathers at a time, replace, etc. slide: finches that are white, black,and grey with orange cheeks and beaks. finches are social, gregarious animals. canaries are often housed singly and bred for song, but other finches often aare group housed and bred for color. slide: peking robin - used to be common bird, but it is not very common any more. robin and cardinal used to be commonly seen in the pet trade. aanother interesting thing about pet birds is how toes handle the perch. three toes go forward, one goes backward - called "syndactyly". this is in the robin. this is different from psittacines which have two forward and two back. slide; pigeon - these include the white dove, most commonly seen at disneyworld or in magic shows. there are so many doves at disneyworld that it's a huge part of the disney business, caring for these doves.they have hundreds of them. slide: a green bird and a blue bird - parrot, budgerigar, or parakeet? well, these are psittacines. probably the smallest example of them. most often called "parakeet" but in fact these are budgies, from Australia. males have blue cere, females have brown/tan or pink cere which is slightly roughened, according to our handout, but he is saying many birds do not show sexual dimorphism. who cares? well,owners want to know if it is male or female, and gonadal tissues can become degenerative, or neoplastic...females have egg stuff going on. so the color of the cere in the budgie is helpful. the cere is the unfeathered area above the beak, around the nares. age of bird - in parakeet, if head has bars/stripes, they're probably under 6 wks of age. adult plumage isn't striped on the head, just the nape. after that, hard to guess age. can ask how long they've had the bird. color of cere is under influence of sex hormones. budgie feet: two toes forward, two toes back. so this is a psittacine - zygodactyly. regarding housing and caging - birds are often kept too confined. people keep them in a tiny cage. many birds are rarely let out of the cage. they get no exercise or room to move around. caged birds may be poorly nourished, and still fat, due to no exercise and inappropriate diet. these issues complicate other problems that may be going on. if owners even bother to ask you about this before they buy the bird, and they ask about a first time bird, have them start with something easy to care for, like parakeet (people usually call budgies "parakeets"), cockatiel - and have them give them as much free flight as possible! downside of that isyou can't leave ceiling fan on, can't have water boiling when they are flying around. could dedicate a room for them, that's bird-proofed, for them to fly in. in the summer, let them be outside, in a protected enclosure with filtered sunlight and shade available. true parakeet is much larger than a budgerigar - come in many colors - long tails, but not really good household birds, more of an aviary bird. parakeets do not really enjoy being petted. slide: small psittacine, good pet - cockatiel. somewhat sexually dimorphic - grey ones: males have dark orange cheek patches and yellow crest, female has grey crest and subdued cheek patches and striped tail. these are also a good first bird. sturdy bird, live a long time, can take a little abuse wrt housing, nourishment. slide: lovebirds. these are not very sexually dimorphic, unless you work with them a lot and really know them it is hard to tell male/female. sexing these birds may be done by karyotyping, or by looking in blood or droppings for sex hormone ratios. that depends on sexual maturity of bird, and season, though. another way is endoscopic physical exam to look for testes or ovaries. it's best to look at adults so you can see these things. slide: conure - these are not the best first bird, perhaps not the best pet. not easy to work with as a patient. do not tolerate handling well- they are biters, screamers, generally unsatisfactory. also many conures are silent carriers of a herpesvirus which causes massive die-offs in the aviary. you should not, therefore, mix conures with other spp of birds in an aviary. conures can be really beautiful, are very vocal and social, the sun conure is very beautiful. but it isn't a bird that likes handling, close contact, etc. so what about hand-rearing vs hand-bred but not hand-raised, vs wild-caught? probably captive bred, hand-reared bird will be a better pet. a wild caught adult african grey parrot will not tolerate taming and handling well - and IMO should be left in the wild! blue fronted parrot - often mistaken for yellow headed parrot - not to mention yellow naped or double yellow headed. these are interesting birds. the blue fronted parrot is very sensitive to poxvirus. also it is a bird that isn't a great pet because it doesn't tame well and is difficult to work with. larger psittacine- australian eclectus - these are the opposite of most...the female is the brightly colored one - she will be red with blue and yellow, and has a black beak; and male is green with a yellow/orange beak, and he is smaller. not a common pet. some people say they are not that great of pets b/c they aren't that active. african grey parrot - several subspp. this one has red tailfeathering, grey body. a bird with a 'tude. not easy to work with. they growl sort of defensively. it's hard to handle them. they are popular pets, but also oneof the spp that are heavily self mutilating and feather picking. lorikeet - multicolored - green, black, red, yellow - nectar feeding birds with slender, brushlike tongues. (they had these at the zoo...) macaw - larger - military macaw is green with red; no feathers around the eye, some stripes on the skin there. macaw can be IDd by the bald area around the eye. parrots have feathers up to the margin of the eye. cockatoo - white- looks like a parrot to me :) very narrow featherless area around eye. oh, it has a big crest - cool. no longer looks like a parrot. common pet, can be difficult to deal with. major mitchell's cockatoo - pink with red crest. toucan - not a lot of these kept as pets b/c they are slobs and they eat messily and their droppings are loose. they have big beaks! very attractive birds. come in a variety of types. starlings - the ones that are most likely seen are mynah, which like the toucan has an unusual diet of wetter food. so that is an overview of the birds we're considering. know what these birds weigh - parakeet weighs about 80 gm, it's fat. if it weighs 20 g, it's underweight. should be 35-45 gm. weight is important. always weigh an avian patient. you can't medicate w/o knowing the weight because an error could kill the bird. so, get to know the physiological norms. final thing to say before 10 minute break: just as you wouldn't call a dachshund a boxer, do not call a parrot a macaw. not a confidence builder among clients. learn to tell these birds apart, have a book in the hospital to tell them apart, b/c someone will come in with a bird and THEY may not know what it is either. ---break--- dr dodson birds come from small, meat eating dinosaurs, so - cladistically, they *are* dinosaurs. is it true birds are dinosaurs? it isn't a matter of truth, says dr d - there is perhaps very little doubt that birds descend from dinosaurs, but it may not follow that birds ARE dinosaurs. if thinking they are is useful to you, think that way. the chicken will not care. the term "dinosaur" is a human term. it was said by thomas henry huxley that "birds are nothing but glorified reptiles." and birds are really very different from mammals in their soft anatomy. the aortic arch in mammals is on the left, in birds is on the right, in crocodilians (the most dinosaurlike reptiles) it is on the right also. so that is dinosaurian/reptilian. he has a bird pelvis with him - ostrich pelvis. looks nothing like mammal one. remember the fused synsacrum? the highest # of fused sacral vertebrae in a dinosaur was 11, so this pelvis is more fused than that. this is a very dinosaurian pelvis, though. the femur is hollow, thin walled with bony struts. slides: _The Dinosauria_ a textbook by Dodson et al. first fossil bird == archaeopteryx, described in 1861 "earth's water supply came from dinosaur wee wee" Dodson Park - little jurassic park knock off slide chart of the groups of dinosaurs - two important things to know - one is that crocodiles are the closest living relatives of dinosaurs, and the otheris that birds are direct descendants of small, meat eating dinosaurs. so crocs and birds are a phylogenetic bracket for dinosaurs. people have tried to "remake" the image of dinosaurs as warmblooded and intelligent. small meating eating dinos were probably NOT as smart as we are. the brainiest dinosaur, aa little raptor, was smart compared to other dinosaurs or reptiles, but had a brain more like an oppossum than like a person. Joseph Leidy - father of american paleontology - founded it in north america. Dr Dodson considers himself the second coming of joseph leidy :) 2 yrs ago in madagascar he found a bunch of fossils from meat eating dinosaurs. the same fossil beds contained a small foot, with claws...probably a fossil bird of cretaceous age. so birds do go back to the age of dinosaurs. there is a bit of a problem with this. this foot is more dinosaurian than birdlike - there is no tarsometatarsal fusion. but they think it is at the same level as archiopteryx, although it is 60 million years later. this animal had a long tail, and a very long birdlike ulna. fossil cretaceous birds from argentina - they looked at microscopic bone structure of these bones - and found growth rings. those are only in reptiles, not in birds. also not in mammals. this suggests that the growth pattern is reptilian, not avian. so early birds were not physiologically like today's birds. and the dinosaurs they came from were very reptilian, not warm blooded. one thing lacking in many cretaceous fossil birds - rib structure, deep sternum, keel, jointed ribs - these fossils do not have jointed ribs or well developed breastbone. we think they were much more primitive. change of wind has occurred - "Taking wing" - by Pat Shipman - this book talks about descent of birds and is very controversial. in past 6 mos, a lot of articles have been published - "a bird and a dinosaur" "dinosaurs with feathers" "when is a bird not a bird" etc. a series of fossils from china have been found - first one 2 yrs ago - and it was reported that they'd found an animal they called "Sinosauropteryx" or chinese winged reptile. the argument was that this animal was a dinosaur with feathers. the fossil looks dinosaurian. it's about two feet long. it seems to have a black carbon film of something stretching along the dorsal midline - argued to be feather or hair. they aren't supposed to be seen in reptiles, whatever they are. the preservation is great. the retina is there as a black spot, there is a dark visceral mass in thorax. these fossils came from a real backwater area of what used to be called Manchuria. slide: closeup of head of this beast with these hairlike things. this is very controversial whether they are feathers or not. the researchers really want them to be feathers, or protofeathers, but we can't be sure. however, in nearby areas is another fossil - a definite bird. Confuciusornis. there are hundreds of these there and you can see feathers plainly outlined around them. the females lacked tail plumes and males had them (we think). there is a series of fossils...dinosaur wannabees with maybe feathers, andthen there are these with definite feathers. age of these fossils? not sure. as old as archaeopteryx? probaably somewhat younger, more like 120 million years old. now, this year they found another series of fossils. "Protoarchaeopteryx" - dinosaurian with a tuft of tailfeathers? Dr D is concerned.this fossil is not that well preserved, for one. it could be a bird. another animal called somethinteryx definitely has feathers. is it a dinosaur with feathers?well, why would feathers evolve on a dinosaur? for insulation? if you derive them for insulation, why are they way the hell out on the digits? this could just be a bird which has become secondarily flightless. this animal also has a masss of stomach stones - an avian characteristic, but sometimes crocs have them. evidence for dinosaurian status of birds: looking at the skull of a bird, there are features similar to reptile skulls - birds are now toothless although there are fossil birds with teeth. skull is small, there is considerable cheek reconstruction compared to dinos but otherwise very similar. fossil from TX was given the name "protoavis" and it is 225 million yrs old. this fossil is 75 million years before archeopteryx and is more modern seeming which is really improbable. one problem is the guy who described it was very idealistic in his reconstruction. Dr D is not convinced. the pelvis has a birdlike ilium, ischeum, pubis - but when you look at the actual fossil, most of this is dotted in, whole pubis is hypothetical. the actual bones are bigger than these drawings (proportions are off, that is) modern bird has deep keeled breastbone not seen in dinos or early bird. is it possible that - if flight muscles attach to deeply keeled breastbone - birds could fly without the keeled breastbone? yes. bats do not have a deeply keeled sternum and they can fly. so breast muscles can originate off a median raphe and still produce flight. there is a suggestion about the function of the keeled sternum in birds - air sacs b/c levels of pectorals and other muscle - bony sternal plate may function to keep air sacs open and allow heat loss during exercise. dinosaurs always have developed fibula - this is reduced in birds birds fuse up the tarsometatarsus skull - triassic dino has big space b/w orbit and nostril- anteorbital fenestra - and big open area behind the eye - oops, i got very distracted by the jackhammering. lost his train of talk, here. but there are evolutionary trends. birds have a special wrist bone that allows them to fold their wings. it is also seen in some dinosaurs. evolutionary quandary in the hand - birds have 3 digit, meat eating dino 3, early dino 5, crocodile 5. fossil evidence suggests dinos have digits 1,2,3; developmental evidence suggests that birds have digits 2,3,4. so that's a problem. in birds, pubis has rotated backwards. in dinos, it points forward. did flight in birds arise from running dinosaurs, or jumping off branches? take your pick. ---end----