What is the scientific name for birds?
Q: What is the scientific name for birds?
A: The scientific name for birds is Aves.
Q: How do birds regulate their body temperature?
A: Birds are endothermic, meaning they generate their own heat. Their feathers help to slow down the loss of this heat from their bodies.
Q: What physical features do modern birds have?
A: Modern birds have beaked jaws, hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart and a strong yet lightweight skeleton.
Q: How many living species of birds are there?
A: There are about ten thousand living species of birds. More than half of these are passerines, sometimes known as perching birds.
Q: Are modern birds descended from Archaeopteryx?
A: No, according to DNA evidence modern birds (Neornithes) evolved in the long Upper Cretaceous period and not from Archaeopteryx.
Q: When did primitive bird-like dinosaurs first appear on Earth?
A: Primitive bird-like dinosaurs first appeared on Earth around 170 million years ago during the mid-Jurassic period.
Q: How did some bird species develop wings?
A: Wings evolved from forelimbs and gave some bird species the ability to fly.
