telophase | (no subject)

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solarbird: What, if Anything, is Big Bird? It's SCIENCE. (video)

Good point, fbuser, but six years old is well into adulthood for birds, even giant flightless birds, and Grandicrocavis has obviously reached adult size. I think observers are confused by the retention of juvenile characters into adulthood, a phenomenon called paedomophosis I mentioned but didn't have 20 seconds to discuss, which has already been proposed as the flightlessness mechanism for a number of birds. (The best way to shrink wings is to arrest adult development, which has side-effects like fluffy feathers, and, in the case of G. viasesamensis, a tendancy to ask naive questions.)

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