The flying animals Are those species that have the ability to travel through the air by their own means, generally thanks to the ability to fly.
Also known mainly as birds or insects, these types of animals differ from terrestrials by the presence of wings and feathers in their body, although there are some subspecies that do not have them.
Another distinctive feature of this group of animals over others is their way of conceiving life. In fact, to reproduce they do so through eggs, so they are called oviparous.
Most aerial animals feed on seeds, insect worms and fruits, although there are also some species called scavengers, which eat meat that they obtain from the waste of dead animals.
There are different scientific taxonomic categories within this type of animal. They are mainly divided into two major groups: birds and insects.
In all cases their habitat is not exclusively air, but they live on land and water as well, but stand out for their ability to fly.
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Types of aerial animals
The birds
One of the major groups within the aerial animals are the birds, whose history goes back to 200 million years.
Defined by zoology as vertebrate, warm-blooded animals, they are bipedal and have the motive ability to fly, jump and walk. One of the characteristic features of birds is their wings, which occupy the place of the front limbs.
Most of the species can use them to fly although those that do not have that faculty are not considered aerial animals although they can be birds, like the ostrich.
Its hind limbs are legs, with varying features but all with claw-shaped feet, which may have two, three or four parts in different positions.
Birds have a body whose main peculiarity and difference with other species is that it is covered with feathers.
Among the vital functions of feathers for aerial animals, they serve to control body temperature, fly, protect themselves from wind, humidity or sun, float, swim, dive, slide, walk in the snow, build their nests, take care of Their young, camouflage and store food or drinks.
In addition, many of the species of this group of aerial animals have instead a mouth, with a horny shape. They lack teeth, so they swallow the food in its entirety without swallowing them in the mouth, but that process occurs in the stomach.
In this sense, the peak serves to feed, build, transport some materials but also use it as a weapon of defense or seduction.
As for the body size of the birds, these present differences according to the species, and it can vary between the 6.4 centimeters of the hummingbirds to the almost two meters that can have some eagles.
Bird-like aerial animals have mostly thin, supple skin, which allows them great ease and variety of movement to their muscles.
Within their muscle mass, the muscles of the pectorals are the most prominent and prominent, as they are highly developed to allow and effect flutter.
This group of aerial animals have a number of peculiarities in the behaviors that make up their life cycle that the differences of other species, even with those that share habitat. Birds are skillful builders and can make nests in different places and with different structures, to accommodate their young and take care of them in their primary development.
They also have particularities in the feeding of their young, which is often produced by word of mouth. In addition, they stand out for their ability to migrate depending on the seasons of the years throughout their life.
Another characteristic feature is the need to live in groups of large specimens that are detected by mating with offspring growing on eggs.
In general, their bones have a dry and light composition, something that allows them to have little body weight. In addition, they present a respiratory system with very efficient functions. The sum of their bone structure and their respiratory system allows them to develop their main means of locomotion, flight, in an agile and effective way.
Among his most important faculties are his sight and his communication, which vary according to each species, but all have songs or sound calls. In addition, they have highly developed cognitive abilities.
Insects
Unlike birds, insects that are part of aerial animals are invertebrate organisms. Without a spine, its physiognomy completes it: a pair of antennas, three pairs of legs and two pairs of wings.
Insects comprise more than one million species registered on the face of the Earth and another 30 million unregistered, making them the most varied group of animals on the planet.
Like birds, their life is not entirely aerial, but can adapt to any type of habitat, but only a small group manages to adapt to the ocean.
All insects have great ability to detect danger and flee. Antennas are a fundamental organ that allow them to smell, touch and hear, whether in situations of risk, mating or location.
The physiognomy of the insects comprises the external exoskeleton, which covers the whole body and has different layers, the head, the antennae and its extremities.
Within the extremities are its wings, composed of silky and transparent material, and its legs, which are characterized by being articulated, giving it a variety of possible movements.
Its mouth is one of the peculiarities of this type of aerial animals, because it is a complex system that allows them to grind, chew or gnaw solid foods.
One of the main parts of his oral apparatus is the labrum, considered as the roof of the mouth and which is composed of a hardened cuticle plate, with varying shapes and ascending and descending movements.
Another of the regions is the jaw, similar to that of any mammal, located under the upper lip, articulated, resistant and sclerotic. The jaw allows the mastication in the insects that require this function to feed.
The insects also have jaws, which are a pair of organs that are behind the jaw and participate in the food process, which completes the hypopharynx (something similar to the language of mammals) that fulfills gustatory functions.
Within their buccal system, this type of aerial animals present lips, but in an odd structure located under the jaws.
All these parts make up a complex system, which allows them to feed themselves and obtain enough nutrients in different places. However, and despite the physiognomic homogeneity in their oral apparatus, insects are also classified by their way of consuming food.
According to the science there are six types, they are: chewing type insects, cutters - suckers, suckers, chewers - lickers, choppers - suckers and siphon tubes.
Types of locomotion
Aerial animals are further divided by the mode of locomotion they use in flight. There are two types: motorized and non-motorized.
The former comprise aerial animals that impose their muscular strength and action to generate the necessary aerodynamic forces that allow them to fly.
On the contrary, the way of locomotion without motor, does not use energy. But this form of displacement is based on the ability of some species to use the wind to develop their aerodynamic force.
The air pushes them and their wings drift the winds in the directions necessary to stay in flight. However, this causes that they can not maintain neither the speed, nor the altitude, reason why it is a form of flight in descent.
The type of locomotion also delimits their diet, while the aerial animals that plan take their nutrients from the low fruits of the trees by their ability to slip.
While those who motorize the flight action thanks to their muscular strength consume the foods of the higher parts of the plants, having a different diet.
Aerial animals comprise a large number of species that have the ability to fly and move through the atmosphere by their own means but that inhabit different ecosystems, complicating their categorization in a detailed way for science.
At the same time there are also aerial animals that have the capacity to move in earth and air ecosystems, called Airfield animals .
The flight
The air environment presents a very different composition of water or land, mainly because it does not have a stable surface on which to sustain what forces maintenance by its own means, essentially flying.
The flight of aerial animals is their ability to move through the atmosphere without physical support. This occurs when thanks to the wing profile of their wings they push the air faster downwards than up.
The flight is a particular action that was copied by the aeronautical engineers to develop the aircraft. Like other species, the aerial animals present the quality of adaptation to the environment, if appropriate with particular characteristics.
One of the external stimuli to which they had to adapt is the winds that can help in the flight or, on the contrary, drag them, which represents a vital risk.
In addition, in the air the seasonal changes are clearly delineated and the climatic conditions present a wide variety of unmarked probabilities, it also forces the aerial animals to be adapted to these details.
However, in the air space there is less obstacle, only the storms or the other species, which facilitates the transit of the different species.
The flight of the aerial animals was modified to obtain greater efficiency with the own evolution of each species. Up to now, four evolutionary cycles are recorded in its history of almost 200 million years of existence.
However, the great development lies in the glide, which is the ability of some species to fly downhill without moving their wings. There is no precise record but this action mutated immeasurably.
Some species, of dense and dense habitats, even evolved their ability to slide with the need to move from tree to tree. Thus, in addition, developed a method of defense for predators.