Xref: utzoo sci.bio:1958 talk.origins:4817
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!unmvax!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!apple!sabol
From: sabol@Apple.COM (Bryan Sabol)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,talk.origins
Subject: Re: The birds and the beaks
Keywords: evolution, birds, beaks
Message-ID: <28330@apple.Apple.COM>
Date: 3 Apr 89 21:50:37 GMT
References: <404@censor.UUCP> <27216@apple.Apple.COM> <464@corpane.UUCP> <27761@apple.Apple.COM> <454@censor.UUCP>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc, Cupertino, CA
Lines: 33

In article <454@censor.UUCP> jeff@censor.UUCP (Jeff Hunter) writes:
	>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).

	I think we've got a problem with that idea:  if I remember
correctly, we both agreed that _archeopteryx_ is considered to be the
first/ancestoral bird, yet its diet was small animals and insects.  I'm
pretty sure that its diet wasn't vegetarian.
	I do agree that birds were successful;  seeing their numbers and
diversity 150 million years later is testimony to that.  My question is
though, how does the success of birds relate to beaks/wings?  I lost the
point of your aforenoted statement somewhere.

	>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?

	Yup.  I think that turtles have true beaks.  There are also some
fish who also have beaks (generically called 'parrotfish', for good
reason), too.  I wasn't arguing that birds were the only animals at all
to have beaks;  I guess a better clarification would be to say that I
can't think of another order (I think that's the correct level) of
organisms that *only* have beaks.

	Finally, we all know what the perfect answer is (42);  it's the
question that needs to be found (beware of mouse).

bryan sabol
ousted reedie-at-large