Birds-of-Paradise

     Isolated in the rainforests of New Guinea, a paradise-bird species has evolved with absolutely no predators. With this said, the birds have sexually selected themselves to be mostly females, as the male species is not very important. Ed Scholes, an ornithologist at Cornell University and National Geographic photojournalist Tim Laman have conducted an analysis within the rainforest of New Guinea and Australia for the past eight years in search of every one of the birds-of-paradise’s 39 species. Scholes and Laman have taken over 40,000 photographs of the bird’s behavior as well as courtship rituals. The project is said to launch in mid-January however they have put up a clip of the bird species to view. A question that arises is how did evolution create this intriguing species? More will be clarified in the beginning of 2013. 

* Information obtained at www.discovermagazine.com

* Pictures obtained at www.press.nationalgeographic.com & www.jawwad.org

 Figure 23.1

 Figure 23.2