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Author: Judy Diamond
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520920805
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
The kea, a crow-sized parrot that lives in the rugged mountains of New Zealand, is considered by some a playful comic and by others a vicious killer. Its true character is a mystery that biologists have debated for more than a century. Judy Diamond and Alan Bond have written a comprehensive account of the kea's contradictory nature, and their conclusions cast new light on the origins of behavioral flexibility and the problem of species survival in human environments everywhere. New Zealand's geological remoteness has made the country home to a bizarre assemblage of plants and animals that are wholly unlike anything found elsewhere. Keas are native only to the South Island, breeding high in the rigorous, unforgiving environment of the Southern Alps. Bold, curious, and ingeniously destructive, keas have a complex social system that includes extensive play behavior. Like coyotes, crows, and humans, keas are "open-program" animals with an unusual ability to learn and to create new solutions to whatever problems they encounter. Diamond and Bond present the kea's story from historical and contemporary perspectives and include observations from their years of field work. A comparison of the kea's behavior and ecology with that of its closest relative, the kaka of New Zealand's lowland rain forests, yields insights into the origins of the kea's extraordinary adaptability. The authors conclude that the kea's high level of sociality is a key factor in the flexible lifestyle that probably evolved in response to the alpine habitat's unreliable food resources and has allowed the bird to survive the extermination of much of its original ecosystem. But adaptability has its limits, as the authors make clear when describing present-day interactions between keas and humans and the attempts to achieve a peaceful coexistence.
Author: Judy Diamond
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520920805
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248
Get Book Here
Book Description
The kea, a crow-sized parrot that lives in the rugged mountains of New Zealand, is considered by some a playful comic and by others a vicious killer. Its true character is a mystery that biologists have debated for more than a century. Judy Diamond and Alan Bond have written a comprehensive account of the kea's contradictory nature, and their conclusions cast new light on the origins of behavioral flexibility and the problem of species survival in human environments everywhere. New Zealand's geological remoteness has made the country home to a bizarre assemblage of plants and animals that are wholly unlike anything found elsewhere. Keas are native only to the South Island, breeding high in the rigorous, unforgiving environment of the Southern Alps. Bold, curious, and ingeniously destructive, keas have a complex social system that includes extensive play behavior. Like coyotes, crows, and humans, keas are "open-program" animals with an unusual ability to learn and to create new solutions to whatever problems they encounter. Diamond and Bond present the kea's story from historical and contemporary perspectives and include observations from their years of field work. A comparison of the kea's behavior and ecology with that of its closest relative, the kaka of New Zealand's lowland rain forests, yields insights into the origins of the kea's extraordinary adaptability. The authors conclude that the kea's high level of sociality is a key factor in the flexible lifestyle that probably evolved in response to the alpine habitat's unreliable food resources and has allowed the bird to survive the extermination of much of its original ecosystem. But adaptability has its limits, as the authors make clear when describing present-day interactions between keas and humans and the attempts to achieve a peaceful coexistence.
Author: Peter Trull
Publisher: Schiffer Publishing
ISBN: 9780764357640
Category : Bird watching
Languages : en
Pages : 96
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Book Description
Nesting along the sandy fringe of the North American coast from Maine to Florida, terns are graceful symbols of our coastal beaches, yet they lead fragile and frantic lives. Join educator, storyteller, and photographer Peter Trull as he describes the physical and behavioral differences among the four types of terns that nest in the Cape Cod area, their migratory habits and predators, and why they are called birds of paradox. Both a photographic journey and an ornithological diary, Trull describes his ten-plus years watching, recording, and photographing these birds from Massachusetts to the coast of Guyana. More than 100 photographs depict day-to-day life and never-before-seen behaviors from inside the dynamic, noisy nesting colonies. This engaging book offers momentary glimpses into the complexities of these erratic, agile seabirds--seemingly carefree but always on the hunt--and their struggle to survive.
Author: Sankar Chatterjee
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 142141614X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 387
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Book Description
The most comprehensive account of the origin of ancient and modern birds—the "living dinosaurs." A small set of fossilized bones discovered almost thirty years ago led paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee on a lifelong quest to understand their place in our understanding of the history of life. They were clearly the bones of something unusual, a bird-like creature that lived long, long ago in the age of dinosaurs. He called it Protoavis, and the animal that owned these bones quickly became a contender for the title of "oldest known bird." In 1997, Chatterjee published his findings in the first edition of The Rise of Birds. Since then Chatterjee and his colleagues have searched the world for more transitional bird fossils. And they have found them. This second edition of The Rise of Birds brings together a treasure trove of fossils that tell us far more about the evolution of birds than we once dreamed possible. With no blind allegiance to what he once thought he knew, Chatterjee devours the new evidence and lays out the most compelling version of the birth and evolution of the avian form ever attempted. He takes us from Texas to Spain, China, Mongolia, Madagascar, Australia, Antarctica, and Argentina. He shows how, in the "Cretaceous Pompeii" of China, he was able to reconstruct the origin and evolution of flight of early birds from the feathered dinosaurs that lay among thousands of other amazing fossils. Chatterjee takes us to where long-hidden bird fossils dwell. His compelling, occasionally controversial, revelations—accompanied by spectacular illustrations—are a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in the evolution of "the feathered dinosaurs," from vertebrate paleontologists and ornithologists to naturalists and birders.
Author: Robert Faggen
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521634946
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308
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Book Description
A collection of specially-commissioned essays, enabling readers to explore Frost's art and thought.
Author: Alan Feduccia
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300078619
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 490
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Book Description
An exploration of all that is known about the origin of birds and of avian flight. It draws on fossil evidence and studies of the structure and biochemistry of living birds to present knowledge and data on avian evolution and to propose a new model of this evolutionary process.
Author: Ronald J. Brachman
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 542
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Book Description
Proceedings held May 1989. Topics include temporal logic, hierarchical knowledge bases, default theories, nonmonotonic and analogical reasoning, formal theories of belief revision, and metareasoning. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.
Author: Jim Moir
Publisher: Unbound Publishing
ISBN: 1800180039
Category : Humor
Languages : en
Pages : 307
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Book Description
Vic Reeves Art Book is an expedition through the mind of Jim Moir, aka the comedian, writer and artist and Vic Reeves. The first collection of his visual work in a decade, this book is a wild ride through subjects and media, ranging from sketches to paintings. Whether he’s depicting Sooty and Sweep unzipped and on the toilet, or grotesque versions of beloved TV personalities, Jim’s unmistakable humour shines through in every brushstroke. Featuring more than 200 images, this is the definitive compendium of Jim’s art, covering early work, some of his best-known pieces, and brand-new creations exclusive to the book.
Author: Jack E. Davis
Publisher: Liveright Publishing
ISBN: 1631495267
Category : Nature
Languages : en
Pages : 432
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Book Description
Best Books of the Month: Wall Street Journal, Kirkus Reviews From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Gulf, a sweeping cultural and natural history of the bald eagle in America. The bald eagle is regal but fearless, a bird you’re not inclined to argue with. For centuries, Americans have celebrated it as “majestic” and “noble,” yet savaged the living bird behind their national symbol as a malicious predator of livestock and, falsely, a snatcher of babies. Taking us from before the nation’s founding through inconceivable resurgences of this enduring all-American species, Jack E. Davis contrasts the age when native peoples lived beside it peacefully with that when others, whether through hunting bounties or DDT pesticides, twice pushed Haliaeetus leucocephalus to the brink of extinction. Filled with spectacular stories of Founding Fathers, rapacious hunters, heroic bird rescuers, and the lives of bald eagles themselves—monogamous creatures, considered among the animal world’s finest parents—The Bald Eagle is a much-awaited cultural and natural history that demonstrates how this bird’s wondrous journey may provide inspiration today, as we grapple with environmental peril on a larger scale.
Author: Raymond M. Smullyan
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 0307819795
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 200
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Book Description
In this entertaining and challenging new collection of logic puzzles, Raymond Smullyan—author of What Is the Name of This Book? And The Lady or the Tiger?—continues to delight and astonish us with his gift for making available, in the thoroughly pleasurable form of puzzles, some of the most important mathematical thinking of our time. In the first part of the book, he transports us once again to that wonderful realm where knights, knaves, twin sisters, quadruplet brothers, gods, demons, and mortals either always tell the truth or always lie, and where truth-seekers are set a variety of fascinating problems. The section culminates in an enchanting and profound metapuzzle (a puzzle about a puzzle), in which Inspector Craig of Scotland Yard gets involved in a search of the Fountain of Youth on the Island of Knights and Knaves. In the second and larger section, we accompany the Inspector on a summer-long adventure into the field of combinatory logic (a branch of logic that plays an important role in computer science and artificial intelligence). His adventure, which includes enchanted forests, talking birds, bird sociologists, and a classic quest, provides for us along the way the pleasure of solving puzzles of increasing complexity until we reach the Master Forest and—thanks to Gödel’s famous theorem—the final revelation. To Mock a Mockingbird will delight all puzzle lovers—the curious neophytes as well as the serious students of logic, mathematics, or computer science.
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Languages : en
Pages : 282
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Book Description
