SPECIES OF BIRDS
SPECIES OF BIRDS Birds are a class of animal that can be identified as having wings, beaks, feathers, and laying hard-shelled eggs. Some types of birds such as hummingbirds are tiny and can be as small as 2” (5 cm). At the other end of the scale, large flightless birds such as ostriches can be as tall as 9 ft. (2.75 m). All species of birds play an important role in their native habitats, and many people like to keep domestic birds as pets. All kinds of birds belong to the animal class Aves which is in the phylum Chordata . There are an estimated 18,000 species of birds and they live on all continents in the world. Birds are classified by the fact they are warm-blooded vertebrates, have 2 legs, feathers, wings, and bills. Because they don’t have mammary glands or give birth to their young, birds aren’t a type of mammal. Individual bird species are classified by the similarities they have with each other. For example, different types...