Sunday, August 23, 2009

kiwi!

The bird who can't fly. It pertains to the genus Apteryx (from the greek a-pterux, meaning without-wing) from the Apterygidae family (there is only one genus, Apteryx, in Apterygidae family).

Kiwis pertain to the superoder Palaeognathae (emus, ostriches and relatives), which is particularly controversial since different relations for this superorder have been proposed and there has been disagreement between the kiwi position in it: the Apterygidae could be the sister group of all other ratities or only of emus and cassowaries (which means kiwis could have evolved from the same suborder emus and cassowaires evolved from).
For more info, see Paleognath Relationships from the Tree of Life Project, an awesome web you could spend years looking at.

There are 5 species of kiwis and all of them are in danger.

Enjoy the video :)

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