Grounded: the Natural History of Flightless Birds
I have been giving a lecture series through the University of Canterbury’s Continuing and Bridging Education on flightless birds and their evolution. Rather than print a handout on paper, I’m posting the reading list and supplementary information here.
BOOKS
Tennyson, Alan. 2006. Extinct Birds of New Zealand. Te Papa Press, Wellington.
Beautiful paintings, almost completely up to date. A very approachable coffee-table overview of extinctions in the New Zealand archipelago.
Steadman, David W. 2006. Extinction and Biogeography of Tropical Pacific Birds. University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Steadman’s personal view of his research project. Lots of data, a very thorough overview, and some anecdotes sprinkled throughout. He takes the opportunity to get stuck into prevailing theories of island biogeography.
Worthy, Trevor H, and Richard N. Holdaway. 2002. The Lost World of the Moa. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
The two main researchers in NZ fossil birds present their findings. Some of it is now out of date with recent DNA work, but there is still a huge amount of material. Much of it is of interest only to paleontologists, but it’s worth skimming through the book for the nuggets of amazing information. Now out of print, so grab it if you see it.
Murray, Peter F, and Patricia Vickers-Rich. 2004. Magnificent Mihirungs: the Colossal Flightless Birds of the Australian Dreamtime. Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
The book to get if you want to know about dromornithids. I disagree with some of their body mass discussion, but otherwise quite readable, with nice sidebars on Australia’s prehistory and avian anatomy.
Gill, Frank H. 2007. Ornithology (3rd ed.). W.H. Freeman.
A weighty (and expensive) standard ornithology text: the one recommended by most ornithologists.
Proctor, Noble S and Patrick J. Lynch. 1998. Manual of Ornithology: Avian Structure and Function. Yale University Press.
More of a lab manual, with excellent illustrations. An affordable walk through avian anatomy, suitable for high school or undergraduate biologists.
WEBSITES
Tetrapod Zoology. Darren Naish is a young recent PhD with a voracious interest in dinosaurs, mammals, bird evolution, sea serpents, and much else besides. He regularly writes review articles on his blog about all of these topics, pitched at the amateur naturalist but with very good references.