Download The Life of Birds Episode 1 Questions

Name_________________________
Worksheet The Life of Birds
Date_________
The Life of Birds Episode 1 Questions: To Fly or Not to Fly
1. The Red-tailed Hawk used its superior speed and agility to prey on another animal of the
skies. What was it?
2. Birds were not the first animals to fly. What animals preceded them and when?
3. Fossil evidence indicates that the first flying reptiles evolved 200 million years ago. What
were they called?
4. What is believed to be the first bird to evolve and when? What evidence supports this
theory?
5. What are some of the similarities and differences between Archaeopteryx and modern
birds? Modern reptiles?
6. Scientists believe that feathers evolved from scales. What do these structures have in
common?
7. What major evolutionary event reduced nose-weight and increased flight efficiency?
8. How has natural selection influenced the evolution of wings and flight?
9. Although fossil evidence has revealed that birds larger than man once existed, none
remain. What is the largest bird in existence today?
10. Some bird species have become flightless. What are the advantages to this pattern of
evolution? How are the feathers and feeding habits of flightless birds different from those
that fly?
11. Why are so many species of flightless birds unique to New Zealand? Identify at least four
of them.
12. Why do birds swallow stones or pebbles?
AP Environmental Science
Bethpage HS
1
Mr. Clark