ANIMAL RESEARCH: PART 2 - ADAPTATIONS

Student’s first and last name: ​David

Science period: ​8
Common name of animal: ​Guira Cuckoo

Answer ​at least​ 5 questions:

1. Describe in detail how your animal’s ​senses​ are adapted for survival. ​One of the birds biggest
senses is its eyesight because they need it to avoid predators and they also need it to find their prey
and they have a better eyesight than humans they can also see small things 2-3 times better than
humans the reason they have a better eyesight is because they have a thicker retina than humans.1
.Birds have much more accurate sound recognition skills than than humans birds are very sensitive to
any type of tone or pitch or rhythm birds have to recognize different calls because other birds might
say watch out there's a predator or a territory call or they want to share food.2. Birds are very sensitive
to changes in the weather, pressure, and wind speed and the changes are transferred down the
feathers of the bird and it goes to the extensive nerves of the bird in their skin.3. A birds taste is not as
good as a humans because they have 50-500 taste buds and humans have 9000-10000 taste buds
but birds can still taste sweet, bitter, and sour tastes since birds don’t have the best taste they only
show interest in some foods.4.

2. Describe in detail how your animal is adapted for ​moving​ through its environment. ​The Guira
cuckoo is not very good at flying so it has to glide down in order to get somewhere or the bird has to
jump from place to place. 5. The Guira cuckoo also have feet that have two toes pointing forward and
they have two more that point backwards and that lets the Guira cuckoo run on the ground and climb
trees they also have many adaptations that increase the animals fitness in any environment that it
lives in.6. The guira cuckoo is not one of the stealthy birds because every time they glide from one
place to another they vocalize very loudly.7.

3. Describe in detail how your animal is adapted for obtaining and digesting ​food​ in its environment.
The Guira cuckoo is a bird that is in the open habitats and it feeds on arthropods, frogs, eggs, and
mice the guira cuckoo also eats small birds and mammals.8 There beak is curved down so they can
eat their food.9. The Guira cuckoo is always with a group and they hunt together and they look for
food on the ground or they search on branches.10 . Birds do not chew their food they have special bills
that helps them take bites they will swallow their food whole unless they don’t want to or if its to big
and they rip up their food and they use their bills to break hard food like nuts and large seeds.11.

1
"Bird Senses - How Birds Use Their 5 Senses - The Spruce." 22 Apr. 2017, ​https://www.thespruce.com/birds-five-senses-386441​. Accessed 2 Feb. 2018.
2
"Bird Senses - How Birds Use Their 5 Senses - The Spruce." 22 Apr. 2017, ​https://www.thespruce.com/birds-five-senses-386441​. Accessed 2 Feb. 2018.
3
"Bird Senses: Understanding Their World - PetPlace."
​
https://www.petplace.com/article/birds/general/bird-senses-understanding-their-world/​. Accessed 2
Feb. 2018.
4
"Bird Senses - How Birds Use Their 5 Senses - The Spruce." 22 Apr. 2017, ​https://www.thespruce.com/birds-five-senses-386441​. Accessed 2 Feb. 2018.
5
"Guira cuckoo - Wikipedia." ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guira_cuckoo​. Accessed 26 Jan. 2018.
6
"Guira Cuckoo - Guira guira - Details - Encyclopedia of Life." ​http://eol.org/pages/913243/details​. Accessed 30 Jan. 2018.
7
"Guira cuckoo - Wikipedia." ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guira_cuckoo​. Accessed 2 Feb. 2018.
8
"Guira Cuckoo." ​http://sfzoodocents.org/notebook/FactSheets/AVES/CUCULIFORMES/CuckooGuira.pdf​. Accessed 30 Jan. 2018.
9
"Guira Cuckoo - Birds of the World - WordPress.com." ​https://worldbirdsblog.wordpress.com/guira-cuckoo-guira-guira/​. Accessed 30 Jan. 2018.
10
"Guira Cuckoo - Birds of the World - WordPress.com." ​https://worldbirdsblog.wordpress.com/guira-cuckoo-guira-guira/​. Accessed 2 Feb. 2018.
11
"Bird Digestion - How Birds Eat - The Spruce." 22 Dec. 2017, ​https://www.thespruce.com/digestion-facts-for-birds-386437​. Accessed 2 Feb. 2018.
4. Describe in detail how your animal is adapted for ​competition​ for resources within its environment.
(​ keep in mind that your animal competes with its own species as well as with other species)​ ​The Guira cuckoo
protect their nest but sometimes they take their eggs and they put it in other birds nest and the other
birds raise the guira cuckoo.12 Sometimes the Guira cuckoos will go into other guira cuckoo’s nests
and they will push the eggs off of the nest to decrease the competition for the other guira cuckoo’s
own chicks.13.They also give out territory noises and it will be like a pio or a prr or a high pitched
gurgling sounds it can whistle and it can also mimic other birds noises.14.

5. Describe in detail how your animal is adapted to be ​protected​ from biotic and abiotic factors
in its environment. ​The guira cuckoo is protected by biotic and abiotic factors because the
range of the how many guira cuckoos are in one nest is 4-10 guira cuckoos and they have to be in a
group to have a better chance of surviving because on cold days they need to roost.15. There are also
plants and trees that can help out the guira cuckoo because they can't fly very well so they glide from
tree to tree also they will build their nest on the top of thorny trees.16.

6. Describe in detail how your animal is adapted for maintaining ​homeostasis​. ​In order to stay
warm in the cold the guira cuckoos will group up in a nearby tree or their nest and they will roost
together and that is how they stay warm. They have very little feathers so if it's a sunny day it goes
and suns itself and they get warm also the feathers help the bird in its process.17.

7. Describe in detail how a particular ​body system​ of your animal is uniquely adapted for survival.
The Guira cuckoo has a strong disgusting odor because of their anal glands and the the significance
of the smell is unknown.18. They also have sparse feathers on their back so they have to sun
themselves in order to stay warm and since they don’t have that many feathers that helps them get
warm a little bit faster.19. Their body system have adapted because they can mimic other birds calls
and they also do some other noises and they make those noises to defend their group or to tell other
birds that this is their territory.20.

12
"Cuckoos beat competition by laying 'cryptic' eggs - The Conversation." 12 Aug. 2014,
http://theconversation.com/cuckoos-beat-competition-by-laying-cryptic-eggs-30329​. Accessed 31 Jan. 2018.
13
"Birds — Tracy Aviary." ​http://tracyaviary.org/birhttp://tracyaviary.org/birds/ds/​. Accessed 30 Jan. 2018.
14
"Guira Cuckoo - Birds of the World - WordPress.com." ​https://worldbirdsblog.wordpress.com/guira-cuckoo-guira-guira/​. Accessed 2 Feb. 2018.
15
"Guira Cuckoo :: Saint Louis Zoo." ​https://www.stlzoo.org/animals/abouttheanimals/birds/turacosroadrunners/guiracuckoo​. Accessed 1 Feb. 2018.
16
"Guira cuckoo - Wikipedia." ​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guira_cuckoo​. Accessed 4 Feb. 2018.
17
"Guira Cuckoo - Birds of the World - WordPress.com." ​https://worldbirdsblog.wordpress.com/guira-cuckoo-guira-guira/​. Accessed 4 Feb. 2018.
18
"Guira Cuckoo." ​http://sfzoodocents.org/notebook/FactSheets/AVES/CUCULIFORMES/CuckooGuira.pdf​. Accessed 4 Feb. 2018.
19
"Guira Cuckoo." ​http://sfzoodocents.org/notebook/FactSheets/AVES/CUCULIFORMES/CuckooGuira.pdf​. Accessed 4 Feb. 2018.
20
"Guira Cuckoo - Oiseaux-Birds." ​http://www.oiseaux-birds.com/card-guira-cuckoo.html​. Accessed 4 Feb. 2018.