on two legs
Birds are endothermic tetrapod vertebrates. They are bipedal, which means they walk on two legs. Birds also lay amniotic eggs with hard, calcium carbonate shells. Although birds are the most recent class of vertebrates to evolve, they are now the most numerous vertebrates on Earth. Why have birds been so successful? What traits allowed them to increase and diversify so rapidly? Birds can vary considerably in size, as you can see from the worlds smallest and largest birds, pictured in Figure below . The tiny bee hummingbird is just 5 centimeters 2 inches long, whereas the ostrich towers over people at a height of 2.7 meters 9 feet . All modern birds have wings, feathers, and beaks. They have a number of other unique traits as well, most of which are adaptations for flight. Flight is used by birds as a means of locomotion in order to find food and mates and to avoid predators. Although not all modern birds can fly, they all evolved from ancestors that could.