Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1956 talk.origins:4788
Path: utzoo!censor!jeff
From: jeff@censor.UUCP (Jeff Hunter)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,talk.origins
Subject: Re: The birds and the beaks
Summary: (fat) snakes with beaks :-)
Keywords: evolution, birds, beaks
Message-ID: <454@censor.UUCP>
Date: 1 Apr 89 01:38:50 GMT
References: <404@censor.UUCP> <27216@apple.Apple.COM> <464@corpane.UUCP> <27761@apple.Apple.COM>
Organization: Bell Canada, Business Development, Toronto
Lines: 28

In article <27761@apple.Apple.COM>, sabol@Apple.COM (Bryan Sabol) writes:
> Much more important to the beak's development was the loss of body mass 
> ...
>      birds have an incredibly varied diet. The same goes 
> for bats: there are insect-eating bats, fruit-eating bats, fish-catching bats,
> and, of course, the vampire bats, which subsist on a diet of (mainly) cattle 
> blood.  Each different diet reflects modifications in the animal's eating 
> apparatus.  
> ...
> 	I don't know why bats retained all the teeth/jaw apparatus and
> still are able to fly.  I'd be interested to hear of ideas.  
	
	Hmmmm. Well if you look at the range of bat-foods they all look soft
(except maybe the cattle). If bats went in for eating nuts or bone marrow
they'd need pretty hefty jaws (and maybe little anti-grav packs too :-).
So I'm going to repeat my guess that early birds ate nuts (and needed 
a lightweight nutcracker, and were overwhemingly successful).

	As a side note I seem to recall a short, fat, shelled four-legged
snake with a beak. (Okay, okay, I know turtles aren't even close to being
snakes. Call it post-tistic licence.)
	Do turtles hide teeth back there in their beaks? Anyone know?

-- 
      ___   __   __   {utzoo,lsuc}!censor!jeff  (416-595-2705)
      /    / /) /  )     -- my opinions --
    -/ _ -/-   /-     No one born with a mouth and a need is innocent. 
 (__/ (/_/   _/_                                   Greg Bear