Anseriformes is an order of birds that comprise about 180 living species in three families: Anhimidae, Anseranatidae, and Anatidae, the largest family, which includes over 170 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans. Most modern species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface. With the exception of screamers, all have phalli, a trait that has been lost in the Neoaves. Due to their aquatic nature, most species are web-footed.
The northern shoveler, known simply in Britain as the shoveler, is a common and widespread duck. It breeds in northern areas of Europe and Asia and across most of North America, wintering in southern Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Central, and northern South America. It is a rare vagrant to Australia. In North America, it breeds along the southern edge of Hudson Bay and west of this body of water, and as far south as the Great Lakes west to Colorado, Nevada, and Oregon.
Anas is a genus of dabbling ducks. It includes the pintails, most teals, and the mallard and its close relatives. It formerly included additional species but following the publication of a molecular phylogenetic study in 2009 the genus was split into four separate genera. The genus now contains 31 living species. The name Anas is the Latin for "duck".
Flightless birds are birds that through evolution lost the ability to fly. There are over 60 extant species, including the well known ratites and penguins. The smallest flightless bird is the Inaccessible Island rail. The largest flightless bird, which is also the largest living bird, is the ostrich. Ostriches are farmed for their decorative feathers, meat and their skins, which are used to make leather.
Frank Alexander Wetmore was an American ornithologist and avian paleontologist. He was the sixth Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution.
The steamer ducks are a genus (Tachyeres) of ducks in the family Anatidae. All of the four species occur at the southern cone of South America in Chile and Argentina, and all except the flying steamer duck are flightless; even this one species capable of flight rarely takes to the air. The genus name Tachyeres, "having fast oars" or "fast rower", comes from Ancient Greek ταχυ- "fast" + ἐρέσσω "I row ". The common name "steamer ducks" arose because, when swimming fast, they flap their wings into the water as well as using their feet, creating an effect like a paddle steamer. They can be aggressive and are capable of chasing off predators like petrels. Bloody battles of steamer ducks with each other over territory disputes are observed in nature. They even kill waterbirds that are several times their size.
Wetmore Glacier is a glacier about 40 miles (64 km) long, flowing southeast between the Rare Range and Latady Mountains into the north part of Gardner Inlet. It was discovered by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE), 1947–48, under Ronne, who named this feature for Alexander Wetmore, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, who assisted Ronne in laying out the scientific research program of the expedition.
Chendytes lawi, commonly called the Law's diving-goose, was a goose-sized flightless sea duck, once common on the California coast, California Channel Islands, and possibly southern Oregon. It lived in the Pleistocene and survived into the Holocene. It appears to have gone extinct at about 450–250 BCE. The youngest direct radiocarbon date from a Chendytes bone fragment dates to 770–400 BCE and was found in an archeological site in Ventura County. Its remains have been found in fossil deposits and in early coastal archeological sites. Archeological data from coastal California show a record of human exploitation of Chendytes lawi for at least 8,000 years. It was probably driven to extinction by hunting, animal predation, and loss of habitat. There is nothing in the North American archaeological record indicating a span of exploitation for any megafaunal genus remotely as long as that of Chendytes.
The Cuban giant owl or giant cursorial owl (Ornimegalonyx) is an extinct genus of giant owl that measured 1.1 metres in height. It is closely related to the many species of living owls of the genus Strix. It was a flightless or nearly flightless bird and it is believed to be the largest owl that ever existed. It lived on the island of Cuba.
The Saint Helena crake is an extinct bird species from the island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, one of two flightless rails which survived there until the early 16th century.
The Amsterdam wigeon, also known as the Amsterdam Island duck or Amsterdam duck, was a species of anatid waterfowl, endemic to Île Amsterdam, French Southern Territories. This flightless species is only known from bones and was presumably driven extinct by visiting sealers and the rats they introduced.
The Antillean cave rail, also known as DeBooy's rail, is an extinct rail species which occurred on Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands. Bone fragments of this species were first unearthed by archaeologist Theodoor de Booy in kitchen midden deposits on the Richmond estate near Christiansted, U.S. Virgin Islands in July 1916 and described by Alexander Wetmore in 1918. The Antillean cave rail might have become extinct before the arrival of the Europeans but stories heard by Alexander Wetmore on Puerto Rico in 1912 about an easy-to-catch bird named carrao might refer to this species. The Antillean cave rail was apparently flightless and was hunted as food by the aborigines
Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1976.
Paleontology or palaeontology is the study of prehistoric life forms on Earth through the examination of plant and animal fossils. This includes the study of body fossils, tracks (ichnites), burrows, cast-off parts, fossilised feces (coprolites), palynomorphs and chemical residues. Because humans have encountered fossils for millennia, paleontology has a long history both before and after becoming formalized as a science. This article records significant discoveries and events related to paleontology that occurred or were published in the year 1960.
The Birds of Haiti and the Dominican Republic is a book published as no.155 in the zoological monograph series Bulletin of the United States National Museum. It was authored by Alexander Wetmore, with the assistance of Bradshaw H. Swales, and was published by the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC in 1931. It is in octavo format and contains iv + 484 pages bound in a grey paper cover. It includes 26 black-and-white plates, both of paintings of the birds by Allan Brooks, and of photographs of the habitat.
Eonessa is an enigmatic genus of bird possibly belonging to bird order Gruiformes and which consists of the single species Eonessa anaticula.
Shiriyanetta hasegawai is an extinct species of seaduck from the Pleistocene of Japan. It was flightless, similar to the also extinct Chendytes from the opposite side of the Pacific.
