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Articles on Birds

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Yolks are a great source of vitamins, minerals, fats and proteins packaged up by the female animal for an embryo. Emily Nunell/The Conversation CC-NY-BD

Curious Kids: why do eggs have a yolk?

A yolk allows a developing animal to stay in an egg longer, boosting its chance of survival. The downside is the mother has to work hard finding extra food so her body can create a nutritious yolk.
Chicken or rooster? This bird is both – female on the left (dark feathers), and male on the right (white feathers, with larger comb and physique). Mike Clinton (Roslin Institute)

How birds become male or female, and occasionally both

Birds have some of the most amazing sex differences of any animal. They can control the sex of offspring, and even produce rare half-male, half-females. And their sex genes and chromosomes are quite different from ours.
Generations of giraffes. Shutterstock.

Curious Kids: what is a species?

It can actually be very tricky to define a species, but in the 1900s, scientists found a pretty good way.
Success with conservation of Kangaroo Island’s Glossy Black-Cockatoos can now be compared with other bird conservation efforts around the country. Ian Sanderson/Flickr

For the first time we’ve looked at every threatened bird in Australia side-by-side

New research has shown how to measure conservation progress for Australia’s 238 endangered bird species

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