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Vestigial wings
- Flightless birds all have what are known as vestigial wings. (A vestigial feature is one that had a necessary function for a species’ ancestors, but is not particularly important for modern species.) The wings of a flightless bird are anatomical, rudimentary wings, but are so small or powerless as to be useless to enable flight.
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These are known as vestigial structures: features that had a necessary function at one time for an organism’s ancestors, but are nowhere near as important for modern species. Wings on flightless birds are just one example.
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The only known species of flightless bird in which wings completely disappeared was the gigantic, herbivorous moa of New Zealand, hunted to extinction by humans by the 15th century. In moa, the entire pectoral girdle is reduced to a paired scapulocoracoid , which is the size of a finger.
Oct 24, 2022 · Among the ratites, for instance, ostriches still have fairly large wings, which they use as rudders when running and turning. Wing vestiges may also serve in courtship displays, as in rheas. By contrast, emus and kiwis have minute, vestigial wings, and moa had none at all.
May 13, 2014 · Unlike most birds, their flat breastbones lack the keel that anchors the strong pectoral muscles required for flight. Their puny wings can't possibly lift their heavy bodies off the ground.
- Alison Fromme
May 6, 2019 · Flightless birds all have similar body types, Sackton noted. “They have reduced forelimbs [wings], to different degrees, and they all have this loss of the ‘keel’ in their breastbone that anchors flight muscles,” he said.
Jul 25, 2017 · The emu has vestigial wings measuring about 20 centimetres with only one small digit or claw. It is one of a group of large, flightless birds around the world called ratites.
Nov 4, 2019 · The evolution of flight loss in these birds is associated with a reduction in wing size . This reduction is most extreme in the wingless moa, least extreme in the ostrich, and intermediate in the emu, which has small, vestigial wings.