Aix galericulata (Mandarin duck) 1

Description:

Summary[edit] Description: English: Aix galericulata (Linnaeus, 1758) - male mandarin duck (mount, Cleveland Museum of Natural History, Cleveland, Ohio, USA). This attractive, multicolored bird is a perching duck. It is arboreal, ground-dwelling, and also occupies ponds and lakes. Natural distribution: eastern Russia, eastern China, Japan. Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Aves, Anseriformes, Anatidae, Anatinae, Cairirini Birds are small to large, warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered, bipedal vertebrates capable of powered flight (although some are secondarily flightless). Many scientists characterize birds as dinosaurs, but this is consequence of the physical structure of evolutionary diagrams. Birds aren’t dinosaurs. They’re birds. The logic & rationale that some use to justify statements such as “birds are dinosaurs” is the same logic & rationale that results in saying “vertebrates are echinoderms”. Well, no one says the latter. No one should say the former, either. However, birds are evolutionarily derived from theropod dinosaurs. Birds first appeared in the Triassic or Jurassic, depending on which avian paleontologist you ask. They inhabit a wide variety of terrestrial and surface marine environments, and exhibit considerable variation in behaviors and diets. Date: 15 August 2009, 13:34:55. Source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/47445767@N05/15392441718/. Author: James St. John.