can flamingos fly? Furthermore, are birds mammals?
98271
Flamingoes do indeed fly.  \n\nThere is a great classification system in biology that goes Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species.  \nBoth Birds and Mammals belong to the Domain Eukarya, Kingdom Animalia, Phylum Chordata (the vertebrate animals); but they do not belong to the same classes...\n\nFlamingoes belong to the Class Aves, the birds, which is characterized by toothless animals that are covered in modified scales known as feathers.  Aves also have special features such as hollow bones, fused vertebrae, a keeled sternum, and a modified collar bone known as a furcula.  Birds are warm blooded, just like mammals are believe it or not!  It is believed that birds may have descended from dinosaurs!  Dinosaurs are also thought to have been warm blooded.\n\nMammals belong to the class Mammalia, which is charactarized by animals that have hair, or fur, and mammary glands with which to feed their young with. Mammals develope their young internally in a placenta (mostly, except for marsupials). Birds lay an egg which contains a yolk used to feed their young during development.  After hatching, some species of birds continue to feed their chicks, and some species do not. There are two known mammals that lay eggs, they are called monotremes and include the duck billed playpus and the echidna.\n\nI hope this helps.
1005230
The flying that they do in those movies is an exaggeration of the truth.  There is a type of training that used to be done called "light-body" training, that starts when you're very young, like 3-4 years old.  There are many things they do, but one of the main things they focused on was keeping the spinal column soft.\n\nMost land mammals can't jump out of the water, like fish do, mostly because the spine has become hard/rigid.  At the same time some snakes can strike more than half they body length, because of their flexible body and a firm base.\n\nWhen people with this training would jump, they would "spring" with their legs and their spine giving them 2-3 times the height and 3-4 times the distance of the people without the training, that could only jump with their legs.\n\nEven doing this, couldn't make you "fly".  But, not unlike some monkeys and flying squirrels, if you simply bound, glide, and jump from point to point, through the woods/forest/jungle, going from object to object, it does give the appearance of "flying".  \n\nAnd YES, of course this could be done, very easily, through the city, running across roof tops, jumping an occasional alley way, and scaling larger buildings to "fly" from. \n\nBut, what goes up, most come down too.  Long story short, like Buzz Lightyear said "It's not flying, it's falling with style"
635045
Bumblebees can fly. On an average, a bumblebee travels at a rate of 3 meters per second, beating its wings 130 times per second.\n\nHow did this business of proving that a bumblebee can't fly originate? Who started the story?\n\nOne set of accounts suggests that the story first surfaced in Germany in the 1930s. One evening at dinner, a prominent aerodynamicist happened to be talking to a biologist, who asked about the flight of bees. To answer the biologist's query, the engineer did a quick "back-of-the-napkin" calculation.\n\nTo keep things simple, he assumed a rigid, smooth wing, estimated the bee's weight and wing area, and calculated the lift generated by the wing. Not surprisingly, there was insufficient lift. That was about all he could do at a dinner party. The detailed calculations had to wait. To the biologist, however, the aerodynamicist's initial failure was sufficient evidence of the superiority of nature to mere engineering. \n\nWhatever its origins, the story has had remarkable staying power, and the myth persists that science says a bumblebee can't fly. Indeed, this myth has taken on a new life of its own as a piece of "urban folklore" on the Internet.\n\nIn some sense, the story has done its share to inspire further research. In recent years, scientists have tackled the problem of insect flight from a number of different angles and gained new insights into the complexities of powered flight. \n\nIt's quite possible, for instance, to calculate correctly the area of a rectangular piece of property just by multiplying the length times the width. Yet you can still get the "wrong answer" from a practical point of view, maybe because the measurements of the length and width were inaccurate or there was some ambiguity about the plot's boundaries or shape.\n\nSo, no one "proved" that a bumblebee can't fly. What was shown was that a certain simple mathematical model wasn't adequate or appropriate for describing the flight of a bumblebee.\n\nInsect flight and wing movements can be quite complicated. Wings aren't rigid. They bend and twist. Stroke angles change. New, improved models take that into account.
64483
Mamals (teradactyles) used to fly with leatherlike wings so it would seem that humans could also.  However human arm and chest muscles are not very suitable for flight.  As in the term pigeon or chicken breasted, birds have muscular chests that fascilitate a powerful downward pull on the wings.  Coonsider the shape of a turkey breast and the thick breastmeat there.  Still, the only way a turkey can soar with the eagles, is in their talons.  We would tire too easily, even with very light fake wings.
200412
They can do it, but it usually depends on the function of the vocalization in particular.\nAs others have stated, vocalizations that help group communication (as in flocks flying together) or prey location (as in owls) are emited during flight. \nSome epigamic (reproductive) displays also involve singing while flying, but many songs of male birds are emited from a perch. These may be addressed at other males (territorial) or at females (advertising calls).
707767
Mathematically it is impossible for a honey bee's wings to support it in flight.\nThe praying mantis is the only insect that can turn it's head.\nScientists still do not know how a cat purrs or where in it's body the noise comes from.
433650
Birds fly south because it is instinct. I hope that answers your question.
454243
Your bones are too dense. \n\nNo joke, the reason birds are capable of flight is due to having hollow bones, making them far lighter.
553787
a bird can fly but a fly can't bird.
689395
All use thier kidneys, just as mammals do.\n\nSome seabirds (not all) also have special salt exctreting glands at the base of their beaks that helps them remove excess salt water.
144449
you could flap your arms all day long a (BMPH) Billion Miles Per hour.heheh And you never get lift. See to under stand how birds fly you have to understand a birds body. First off a birds bones are hollow. Meaning less weight. Secondly the birds wings are shaped like a windfoil which gives lift. to explan how a wing works we will go into alittle physics of flight. To understand flight you have to understand how the wing is designed. \n\nfirst take a peice of postit note from one of the 5x3 inch pads. you need a pensile. bring the bottom side of the post it note to the top side where it is sticky. stick it together. Now you have a piece of paper simular to a tear drop. what you going to do is run the pencle between the opening to the other side. let the pice of paper float freely. hold the pencile with both hands one on one side of the paper and the other on the other side of the paper. Not put the not about 5 inches in front of your mouth and blow. Notice what happens the paper lifts. This is what is called lift. This is how birds fly. basicly when you blow on the paper the under side high presure goes under and low presure goes over the top. We will call it a win for now. But pending on how the wind is hitting it will depend on what direction the wing will go. If the tail end is faced up then the wing will go down it it's faced down the wing will go up. When it goes up that is called lift. and thats how birds fly.
106622
Land animals can walk on land and breath oxygen. With the exseption of dolphins and whales the others cant breath oxengen.
470935
Excactly like a dodo. Everything "evolves" as part of a community of other animals and plants in a particular environment, and the pigeon-like ancestors of the dodo could fly, because they came from a place where if you couldn't fly away, you got eaten. When the Dodo's ancestors first landed on the Mauritius they could fly very well, however there was no real advantage in flying once they arrived as there was nothing that they had to fly away from. Those individuals that didn't develop flight muscles were not at any disadvantage and many juvenile characteristics of the dodo were eventually carried into adulthood, as often occurs in small populations without predators. In the case of the Dodo evolving a big head, a wide gape and fat reserves provided a survival advantage that being able to fly could not, as it could exploit fruits when they were in season more effectively. \n\nThis large bird was perfectly evolved for its environment, until the community structure changed (the arrival of capable predators) and like a lot of twigs on the evolutionary tree, it was pruned off. \n\nThe pruning of the tree of life that is taking place today is the most extreme that has ever taken place, according to some biologists.
605957
While the cheetah is the fastest living land animal, there are many birds which are much faster.  Falcons have been noted, often achieving 200 or so mph while stooping.\n\nI believe the fastest bird in level flight is the spine-tailed swift of Asia, Africa and Australia, which can reach 106 mph.
819951
Of course - they are mammals!  This site refers to relevant issues for reference:\n\nhttp://www.hedgehogworld.com/content/view/26/42/
588446
Yes they are called birds.
934136
Technically they CAN fly, but only for a few seconds. They much prefer to run (..at speeds up to 17 mph). The roadrunner is also known as the Chaparral and is the state bird of New Mexico.