Deviation Spotlight
- Deviant for 16 years
- linktr.ee/albertonykus
Got a PhD studying extant and fossil birds. Alternatively, North American alvarezsaurid described in 2009.
Profile Comments 1.4K
What happened to your Albertonykus and New Dinosaur Alert Tumblr pages? When I go to them they say "There's nothing here."
Both are working fine for me.
Many thanks for your quick reply earlier today. I've since replied to said reply. Hope to hear from you soon.
Hope you don't mind, but I just sent you a new note w/a quick question. DA messed up the link, but hopefully you can tell what's there. If not, let me know.
Hope you don't mind, but I have a new question: Based on what I've read, "claims that a Kiwi chick is independent once it leaves the shell are refuted[...back in 1946 based on observations...]that the chick did not leave the nest until it was four days old, nor did it start foraging for food until it had reached the age of six days" ( https://archive.org/details/avicultur525319461947asco/page/6 ) & that it was "escorted by the father" when it did leave/start ("see 1,406": https://books.google.com/books?id=nzk06N_57uUC&q=%22kiwi+chicks%22+%22the+father%22 ) (For 1,406: https://books.google.com/books?id=8PrtCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA322&dq=%22by+the+male+the+chick%22 ); As you can see below, more recent sources saying the same things aren't hard to find; W/that mind, why are said claims still perpetuated by so many otherwise-good/similarly-authoritative sources ( https://www.si.edu/newsdesk/releases/second-kiwi-chick-hatches-smithsonian-conservation-biology-institute-year ) ( https://www.zoonewengland.org/zoo-news/2021/january/kiwi-chick-hatches-for-first-time-at-franklin-park-zoo/ )?; It's very confusing for me, especially when a source contradicts itself ( https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/kiwi ) ( https://sandiegozoowildlifealliance.org/pr/KiwiChick ); Many thanks in advance for (hopefully) clearing all this up 
"Precocial Hatchlings leave the nest immediately (nidifugous) and follow their parents; pick up their own food soon after hatching, although parents help to locate food. Examples: ducks and shorebirds; quail, grouse, and murrelets; also ostriches and kiwis": https://archive.org/details/OrnithologyThirdEditionFrankB.GillW.H.Freeman200671mb/page/n481
"After a week it follows its father around outside, learning how to forage": https://kiwitrust.org/forest-dwellers/kiwi/
"After hatching, the baby kiwi is assisted by its father for ten days before starting its independent life": https://archive.ph/vtYvE
Broadly speaking, it's not rare even for reasonably authoritative sources to repeat deeply entrenched claims in popular media, even if those claims have been shown to be questionable or wrong. It probably wouldn't be too hard to find otherwise reliable and relatively recent references that still state that American vultures are closely related to storks, or that flightless paleognaths diversified through Gondwanan breakup, or that swifts can't take off from the ground.
In this case though, I think it is possible that different sources are generalizing from different observations. Kiwi are difficult to study in the wild, so it wouldn't surprise me if there is more variation in their breeding behavior depending on the species, population, or even individual than is typically appreciated. For example, in the North Island brown kiwi observed by McLennan (1988), "[a]pparently adults did not accompany young" that had emerged from their burrow, so it may be that some kiwi do grow up essentially independent (or nearly so) after leaving the nest, even if that's not always the case. My understanding is that when kiwi do accompany their young away from the nest, as in the little spotted kiwi observed by Jolly (1989), the adults often "[maintain] only a loose contact with the chicks" and the chicks still spend a lot of time alone. So I wouldn't consider it accurate to say that kiwi (always) receive no parental care after leaving the nest, but I can see where such a statement might have come from.
That’s weird. Around 10-11 AM ET both of them didn’t appear for me.