http://www.ck12.org Chapter 12. Understanding Biodiversity: Animals: Birds
Habitat
Black skimmers have a wide range of places they live. They are commonly found on the east and west coasts of
South America and southern North America. Since they live on the coast, they make a home on sandy shores,
shallow bays, or at public beaches.
Biology
Cell Biology
The black skimmer has many eukaryotic cells. Just like every other eukaryotic cell, they have many organelles
inside. One of these organelles is the mitochondria, which is the ̈power plant ̈ of the cell where sugar is burned for
energy. There are other very important organelles such as the vacuoles, which act as a storage center, the nucleus that
contains genetic information about how to build thousands of proteins, and the ribosomes, which are non-membrane
bound organelles that produce proteins.
Some cells need to grow and divide. This process is called cell division, and this happens when a cell is repairing
tissue, embryos are growing, and for any growth. Mitosis is when the nucleus divides, and each new cell contains a
copy of the DNA of the original cell. Meiosis is a form of cell division in which the cell divides to produce gametes
with one half of the chromosomes of the parent cell. Chromosomes contain the cell’s DNA.
Evolution
The black skimmer is a bird that evolved from bipedal dinosaurs, theropods. Theropods are similar to Deinonychus,
which was discovered in the 1960s and was a very important discovery. Deinonychus is an extinct dinosaur that was
a predatory carnivore. It lived in North America 110 million years ago, and had bird-like features. These bird-like
features consisted of having feathers, wings, and clawed feet.
Scientist are still not sure how wings and flight evolved, but they do have some hypotheses. Some believe that wings
were modified arms to help animals jump higher. Others think that it came from ancestors who lived in trees.
Ecology
Black skimmers prey on shrimp and small crustaceans. They have a wide variety of predators. Here is a list of their
known predators:
- black-crowned night herons
- boat-tailed grackles
- common grackles
- fish crow
- red-winged blackbirds
- thief ants
- mound building ants
- pavement ants
- great horned owls
- short eared owls
- ruddy turnstones
- peregrine falcons