Birb taxonomy question
October 10, 2022 1:05 PM Subscribe
Why is a cassowary the "least birb-like bird on the planet" but the Shoebill stork qualifies as a muppet-like birb? According to the extremely important birb guide, muppet-like birds qualify as birbs under rule #3. Seems to me like they should both be birbs or neither. Please help clarify this difficult taxonomical question for me.
I am looking for answers from people who have above-average knowledge of birds and/or taxonomy and/or muppets, please.
I am looking for answers from people who have above-average knowledge of birds and/or taxonomy and/or muppets, please.
Cassowaries also have small angry heads that undercut their muppetness, compared to the slightly-absurd expression of the Shoebill.
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:31 PM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:31 PM on October 10, 2022 [5 favorites]
Best answer: I have a deep and abiding love of muppets and my theory is that the Shoebill stork somewhat resembles Sam the Eagle and the cassowary resembles no muppet I have ever seen.
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 1:46 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
posted by RobinofFrocksley at 1:46 PM on October 10, 2022 [4 favorites]
I think it's because birbs who are birbs look like they're saying "I am just a lil guy" whereas cassowaries look like they're saying "Do NOT fuck with me." Shoebills look like they're saying "I'm just a lil guy, wink wink" so they get honorary inclusion.
posted by bleep at 1:47 PM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
posted by bleep at 1:47 PM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
Best answer: To review, Audubon's birb metrics are
The cassowary is not smol, orb-like, or cute, and if you think there is anything silly or absurd about them, I suspect you have not met one in the murder-eyed flesh. They are deathly serious from crest to talon.
posted by zamboni at 1:56 PM on October 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
- smollitude
- orbosity
- cuteness
The cassowary is not smol, orb-like, or cute, and if you think there is anything silly or absurd about them, I suspect you have not met one in the murder-eyed flesh. They are deathly serious from crest to talon.
posted by zamboni at 1:56 PM on October 10, 2022 [14 favorites]
Best answer: To touch on Zumbador's question, Audubon lists a series of murder birbs:
(P.S. anthropomorphizing birds is for the birds.)
posted by zamboni at 2:07 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
aggression of hummingbirds, the Vlad-the-impaler antics of shrikes, brood parasitism of cuckoos, and brain-eating of Great TitsAs long as it scores high enough on metrics 1 through 3, it's a birb, no matter what it admits to Clarice Starling.
(P.S. anthropomorphizing birds is for the birds.)
posted by zamboni at 2:07 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Cassowaries have a reputation for attacking humans
Which is usually significantly overstated - most interactions that people call "attacks" are actually bluff charges (a shot across the bow as it were, with no physical contact)
and true attacks (physical contact) are almost alway provoked.
Here's a short video showing how remarkably easy it was to discourage a cassowary that was trying to sneakily steal someone's cake.
I've also seen videos of a cassowary startling and running away when a very small tree branch landed on a tin roof and made a loud noise.
Don't get me wrong, if you seriously anger or seriously frighten a cassowary, they ABSOLUTELY can kill you. And you should give them a massive berth if they are travelling with their young chicks.
But their attitude in life seems to be "Don’t Start None, Won’t Be None" - they won't bother you as long as you give them tonnes of personal space and avoiding threatening behaviour towards them.
They're a lot more likely to retreat than to attack, and they're not anywhere near as aggressive as mountain lions or grizzly bears or tigers.
They're regularly seen at popular beaches, picnic spots, people's backyards, on people's verandahs, and sometimes even going inside people's houses - and yet the last person killed by a cassowary in Australia[1] was in 1926, and it was a teenage boy who tried to club a cassowary (that was minding its own business) to death.
For in depth stuff about cassowaries, I recommend this twitter account by a cassowary researcher.
[1] I'm aware of the recent death in the US, but that was a pet cassowary, not a wild one, so we don't know what may or may not have influenced the US attack.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:30 PM on October 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
Which is usually significantly overstated - most interactions that people call "attacks" are actually bluff charges (a shot across the bow as it were, with no physical contact)
and true attacks (physical contact) are almost alway provoked.
Here's a short video showing how remarkably easy it was to discourage a cassowary that was trying to sneakily steal someone's cake.
I've also seen videos of a cassowary startling and running away when a very small tree branch landed on a tin roof and made a loud noise.
Don't get me wrong, if you seriously anger or seriously frighten a cassowary, they ABSOLUTELY can kill you. And you should give them a massive berth if they are travelling with their young chicks.
But their attitude in life seems to be "Don’t Start None, Won’t Be None" - they won't bother you as long as you give them tonnes of personal space and avoiding threatening behaviour towards them.
They're a lot more likely to retreat than to attack, and they're not anywhere near as aggressive as mountain lions or grizzly bears or tigers.
They're regularly seen at popular beaches, picnic spots, people's backyards, on people's verandahs, and sometimes even going inside people's houses - and yet the last person killed by a cassowary in Australia[1] was in 1926, and it was a teenage boy who tried to club a cassowary (that was minding its own business) to death.
For in depth stuff about cassowaries, I recommend this twitter account by a cassowary researcher.
[1] I'm aware of the recent death in the US, but that was a pet cassowary, not a wild one, so we don't know what may or may not have influenced the US attack.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:30 PM on October 10, 2022 [11 favorites]
Best answer: Also here's a video of a cassowary in a zoo relaxing and calmly bathing itself in a mud puddle.
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:44 PM on October 10, 2022
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:44 PM on October 10, 2022
The Australian bird that's most dangerous is the magpie - they get territorial in nesting season,
and in the past 2 years, magpies have
a) injured someone's eye so badly that they lost vision - the person was sitting outside a shopping centre eating hot chips, and the magpie attacked their eye to get their hot chips.
b) harassed a different person so much that they had a fatal heart attack trying to get away from it
c) and harassed a woman carrying a young baby so much that she dropped her baby while trying to get away, and the baby died.
Magpies don't look as impressive as cassowaries - an Australian magpie is smaller than a crow or a raven, altho it has a viciously sharp beak - but magpies are incredibly aggressive and will swoop you just for walking down the wrong street. I once got swooped by a magpie immediately outside that city's largest train station - it had decided that the footpath just outside the train station was its territory and forbidden to all humans, despite the fact that at any given time there were 50 people on the footpath (this was before COVID)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:51 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
and in the past 2 years, magpies have
a) injured someone's eye so badly that they lost vision - the person was sitting outside a shopping centre eating hot chips, and the magpie attacked their eye to get their hot chips.
b) harassed a different person so much that they had a fatal heart attack trying to get away from it
c) and harassed a woman carrying a young baby so much that she dropped her baby while trying to get away, and the baby died.
Magpies don't look as impressive as cassowaries - an Australian magpie is smaller than a crow or a raven, altho it has a viciously sharp beak - but magpies are incredibly aggressive and will swoop you just for walking down the wrong street. I once got swooped by a magpie immediately outside that city's largest train station - it had decided that the footpath just outside the train station was its territory and forbidden to all humans, despite the fact that at any given time there were 50 people on the footpath (this was before COVID)
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 2:51 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I know hoopoe about birbs but a little taxonomy is nice to make sense of the relationships among the~10,000 species of Aves. Your shoebill crane Balaeniceps rex nests comfortably in the midst of other birds: close to pelicans, gannets, storks and pelicans in the majority party [9,900+ species] of birds called new-jaws Neognathae. Cassowaries Casuarius casuarius otoh are members of the old-jaw Palaeognathae which branched off from 'regular' birds more than 100 million years ago. About a dozen of the old-jaws are large and flightless 'ratites' - kiwi, ostrich, rhea, and cassowaries' nearest cousin Emu; which is defo a puppet. jack-daws are new-jaws. OneZoom have a very nice tool for exploring the phylogenetic / taxonomic relationships.
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:54 PM on October 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
posted by BobTheScientist at 2:54 PM on October 10, 2022 [7 favorites]
Did someone mention magpies?
In Summer 1976 I was doing genetic field-work in the Netherlands. My boss showed me how to twist off the silks of the female flower of the maize and sprinkle pollen on the stumps to ensure a particular genetic cross. I was then plonked in the top left-hand corner of an experimental field and told to work away. It was hot and it was 'boring' but I soon got into some sort of a zone and worked away steadily. The farmer would come across every so often to see how I was doing - I think he thought it was a pretty shabby way to treat the foreign kid and was a bit sorry for me. He was the first fellow I'd met in the Netherlands who hadn't a word of English, so I was about 30 words ahead of him. He told me that he'd been a kid when the events of A Bridge Too Far occurred and his father's farm had been seized by the British paratroopers and re-taken by the Germans. Very exciting for a chap and I made a point of going to the Richard Attenborough film when it came out the next year.
But being a farrrrmer, he soon started to moan about the rough deal he was getting with his corn: how the mice and the birds made off with half the crop each year. I couldn't make out what bird was the focus of his indignation - it was def'ny a bird and bigger than his hand but smaller than a breadbox. It wasn't a pigeon (same word: duif = dove) or a rook (roek) or a crow (which is onomatopeiacally kraai). Like the best monoglots he was saying the name LOUDER and it sounded like "flammser throatclearing". I suddenly had an idea to break the impasse. I thought it might be a magpie but had not the faintest idea what Gelderlanders called that bird (ekster as it happens). I reckoned it would be pretentious as well as useless to try latin: Pica pica. So I thought that we might share folk-law about the bird (1 for sorrow, 2 for joy etc) and tried "Deze vogel is 't schlecht geluk?" (is this bird bad luck?). My farmer friend was quite worked up at this point and, brushing aside my attempts at communicating through common ethnic heritage, his reply tumbled out something like "Schlechte geluk? Het is godverdomdte schlechte geluk voor de arme boer wanneer deze vervloekte vogel krijgt op zijn land" aka It is goddamned bad luck for the poor farmer when this cursed bird gets into his fields. None of the words he actually used appeared in my then 30 word vocabulary but I knew exactly what he meant. That evening I rootled about in my dictionaries to find (of course!) Vlaamse gaai (Flemish Jay, Garrulus glandarius); a relative of the magpie much less common in Ireland than on the continent. The g is pronounced in Dutch like an emphatic rattling CH (or hucking up a lunger). Next morning early, I was back in the boondocks mutilating corn flowers and told the farmer that the English word for his pest was "Jay". He was delighted to have our previous discussion resolved. "Ja Ja, de Yay, de Yay".
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:15 PM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
In Summer 1976 I was doing genetic field-work in the Netherlands. My boss showed me how to twist off the silks of the female flower of the maize and sprinkle pollen on the stumps to ensure a particular genetic cross. I was then plonked in the top left-hand corner of an experimental field and told to work away. It was hot and it was 'boring' but I soon got into some sort of a zone and worked away steadily. The farmer would come across every so often to see how I was doing - I think he thought it was a pretty shabby way to treat the foreign kid and was a bit sorry for me. He was the first fellow I'd met in the Netherlands who hadn't a word of English, so I was about 30 words ahead of him. He told me that he'd been a kid when the events of A Bridge Too Far occurred and his father's farm had been seized by the British paratroopers and re-taken by the Germans. Very exciting for a chap and I made a point of going to the Richard Attenborough film when it came out the next year.
But being a farrrrmer, he soon started to moan about the rough deal he was getting with his corn: how the mice and the birds made off with half the crop each year. I couldn't make out what bird was the focus of his indignation - it was def'ny a bird and bigger than his hand but smaller than a breadbox. It wasn't a pigeon (same word: duif = dove) or a rook (roek) or a crow (which is onomatopeiacally kraai). Like the best monoglots he was saying the name LOUDER and it sounded like "flammser throatclearing". I suddenly had an idea to break the impasse. I thought it might be a magpie but had not the faintest idea what Gelderlanders called that bird (ekster as it happens). I reckoned it would be pretentious as well as useless to try latin: Pica pica. So I thought that we might share folk-law about the bird (1 for sorrow, 2 for joy etc) and tried "Deze vogel is 't schlecht geluk?" (is this bird bad luck?). My farmer friend was quite worked up at this point and, brushing aside my attempts at communicating through common ethnic heritage, his reply tumbled out something like "Schlechte geluk? Het is godverdomdte schlechte geluk voor de arme boer wanneer deze vervloekte vogel krijgt op zijn land" aka It is goddamned bad luck for the poor farmer when this cursed bird gets into his fields. None of the words he actually used appeared in my then 30 word vocabulary but I knew exactly what he meant. That evening I rootled about in my dictionaries to find (of course!) Vlaamse gaai (Flemish Jay, Garrulus glandarius); a relative of the magpie much less common in Ireland than on the continent. The g is pronounced in Dutch like an emphatic rattling CH (or hucking up a lunger). Next morning early, I was back in the boondocks mutilating corn flowers and told the farmer that the English word for his pest was "Jay". He was delighted to have our previous discussion resolved. "Ja Ja, de Yay, de Yay".
posted by BobTheScientist at 3:15 PM on October 10, 2022 [8 favorites]
Emu; which is defo a puppet
I’ll concede that whatever this is, while it doesn’t resemble an actual emu, it does have a passing resemblance to another television ratite.
Did someone mention magpies?
Yes, but not those magpies. Australian magpies are in Artamidae with the butcherbirds, Eurasian magpies are corvids.
posted by zamboni at 3:32 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
I’ll concede that whatever this is, while it doesn’t resemble an actual emu, it does have a passing resemblance to another television ratite.
Did someone mention magpies?
Yes, but not those magpies. Australian magpies are in Artamidae with the butcherbirds, Eurasian magpies are corvids.
posted by zamboni at 3:32 PM on October 10, 2022 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Cassowaries are definitely not the raging killers they're made out to be. Sure, they have the ability to disembowel a human with a single swipe of the massive claw on each foot, but you'd have to be pretty determined to get that close to one in the first place. Spotting one in the wild is quite a task and they'll run away long before you see them most times. If they have babies with them, they're much easier to spot and will stay around to protect their children but, most times, they'll simply fade into the bush. If you're looking for dangerous Australian birds, you need look no further than the Magpie - they will fuck you right up without hesitation if you dare to encroach on their territory and enjoy every second of it.
Nobody in their right mind would consider a Magpie as a Birb, but I dispute that the Cassowary cannot be classified as such - they do have a scrotum hanging from their neck and wear a tall helmet. Maybe not cute, but definitely verging on the ridiculous when you take away their fierce reputation.
posted by dg at 3:36 PM on October 10, 2022
Nobody in their right mind would consider a Magpie as a Birb, but I dispute that the Cassowary cannot be classified as such - they do have a scrotum hanging from their neck and wear a tall helmet. Maybe not cute, but definitely verging on the ridiculous when you take away their fierce reputation.
posted by dg at 3:36 PM on October 10, 2022
Best answer: When classifying muppet birds, it is useful to think of the taxonomy of Muppets.
A shoebill is absolutely a Sesame Street-style friendly Muppet. Exaggerated facial features, you can just about hear its voice by looking at it (lowish pitch, slight pharyngeal constriction).
A cassowary is a Skeksis. Different clade of Muppets altogether. Skeksis share some physical characteristics with birds, but this is merely convergent evolution: genetically, they are monsters. A monster is an awe-inspiring and often beautiful creature, but is not a birb.
The only possible exception to this is Gonzo, who similarly comes of monster ancestry but has made the conscious choice to incorporate some birb characteristics into his life (viz. an affinity for flight and chickens). However, Gonzo represents a species known as Whatever which diverged from a common birdlike-monster ancestor long before the Skeksis did, and of which he is currently the sole known example.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:40 PM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
A shoebill is absolutely a Sesame Street-style friendly Muppet. Exaggerated facial features, you can just about hear its voice by looking at it (lowish pitch, slight pharyngeal constriction).
A cassowary is a Skeksis. Different clade of Muppets altogether. Skeksis share some physical characteristics with birds, but this is merely convergent evolution: genetically, they are monsters. A monster is an awe-inspiring and often beautiful creature, but is not a birb.
The only possible exception to this is Gonzo, who similarly comes of monster ancestry but has made the conscious choice to incorporate some birb characteristics into his life (viz. an affinity for flight and chickens). However, Gonzo represents a species known as Whatever which diverged from a common birdlike-monster ancestor long before the Skeksis did, and of which he is currently the sole known example.
posted by Pallas Athena at 3:40 PM on October 10, 2022 [10 favorites]
Best answer: How is this not in the same realm as a muppet?
posted by dg at 4:04 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
posted by dg at 4:04 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
BobTheScientist, your farmer wouldn't have been complaining anywhere near as much about Australian magpies eating his crop - they mainly eat insects, earthworms, small lizards, small geckos, baby birds, and they would ABSOLUTELY have eaten the mice that were eating his corn.
Australian magpies are quite different to European magpies - basically some British people went "they're black and white, so lets call them a magpie like the magpies back in England, even though their diet and behaviour are completely different"
Eurasian magpie are
Superfamily = Corvoidea
Family = Corvidae
Australian magpies are
Family = Artamidae
Genus = Gymnorhina
Species: Gymnorhina tibicen
Australian magpie diet = Invertebrates, fruits, seeds, and small animals including frogs, lizards, and mice
ReWild Benefit = Pest control
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:21 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Australian magpies are quite different to European magpies - basically some British people went "they're black and white, so lets call them a magpie like the magpies back in England, even though their diet and behaviour are completely different"
Eurasian magpie are
Superfamily = Corvoidea
Family = Corvidae
Australian magpies are
Family = Artamidae
Genus = Gymnorhina
Species: Gymnorhina tibicen
Australian magpie diet = Invertebrates, fruits, seeds, and small animals including frogs, lizards, and mice
ReWild Benefit = Pest control
posted by chariot pulled by cassowaries at 10:21 PM on October 10, 2022 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I have a deep and abiding love of muppets and my theory is that the Shoebill stork somewhat resembles Sam the Eagle and the cassowary resembles no muppet I have ever seen.
There used to be a poster on here who looked exactly like Sam the Eagle.
Anyway, I love shoebills -- here are a couple of characteristic shoebill expressions and poses that show how adorable they are (whole account is a fantastic resource): 1, 2. And here is my favorite shoebill picture, which is not exactly cute but you gotta see it.
posted by grobstein at 11:57 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
There used to be a poster on here who looked exactly like Sam the Eagle.
Anyway, I love shoebills -- here are a couple of characteristic shoebill expressions and poses that show how adorable they are (whole account is a fantastic resource): 1, 2. And here is my favorite shoebill picture, which is not exactly cute but you gotta see it.
posted by grobstein at 11:57 AM on October 11, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: I have selected best answers in consultation with a small review board (self, partner, dog). Based on those best answers, I believe the cassowary may have been miscategorized as the "least birb-like bird on the planet".
Important clarifying note; counterargument, also from original source: "Swans and geese have solidified a reputation as terrors, and are worryingly big besides."
Arguments in favor of the cassowary being the least birb-like bird on the planet include:
- Does not resemble famous muppet Sam the Eagle
- "A cassowary is a Skeksis" and thus a monster. It is argued that the categories of monster and birb are typically mutually exclusive.
- Convincing evidence that shoebills have at least one cute moment per hour
Arguments that support the cassowary as birb or birb-like:
- Impressive cassowary puppet
- The cassowary resembles Emu, who is "defo a puppet" - Is it possible that birbs in the Neognathae branch of the family tree qualify if they're muppet-like, and birbs in the Palaeognathae branch of the family tree qualify if they're puppet-like?
-"Have a scrotum hanging from their neck and wear a tall helmet. Maybe not cute, but definitely verging on the ridiculous" which complies with Audubon guidelines that "indirectly define 'muppet-like' as demonstrating 'silliness or absurdity'"
- Adorable cassowary mud bath video link from contributor chariot pulled by cassowaries (possible conflict of interest)
Conclusion
Per the source document, [cassowary] chicks may qualify as birbs (see Rule 1), but the adults most definitely do not. Current evidence indicated that the "least birb-like bird on the planet" may have birb moments as an adult. Our findings indicate that the Audobon society's designation of cassowaries as the "least birb-like bird on the planet" may be misplaced. However, the most direct evidence for cuteness came from a source that has a potential conflict of interest. The question remains unresolved. Further research is needed.
posted by aniola at 10:40 PM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
Important clarifying note; counterargument, also from original source: "Swans and geese have solidified a reputation as terrors, and are worryingly big besides."
Arguments in favor of the cassowary being the least birb-like bird on the planet include:
- Does not resemble famous muppet Sam the Eagle
- "A cassowary is a Skeksis" and thus a monster. It is argued that the categories of monster and birb are typically mutually exclusive.
- Convincing evidence that shoebills have at least one cute moment per hour
Arguments that support the cassowary as birb or birb-like:
- Impressive cassowary puppet
- The cassowary resembles Emu, who is "defo a puppet" - Is it possible that birbs in the Neognathae branch of the family tree qualify if they're muppet-like, and birbs in the Palaeognathae branch of the family tree qualify if they're puppet-like?
-"Have a scrotum hanging from their neck and wear a tall helmet. Maybe not cute, but definitely verging on the ridiculous" which complies with Audubon guidelines that "indirectly define 'muppet-like' as demonstrating 'silliness or absurdity'"
- Adorable cassowary mud bath video link from contributor chariot pulled by cassowaries (possible conflict of interest)
Conclusion
Per the source document, [cassowary] chicks may qualify as birbs (see Rule 1), but the adults most definitely do not. Current evidence indicated that the "least birb-like bird on the planet" may have birb moments as an adult. Our findings indicate that the Audobon society's designation of cassowaries as the "least birb-like bird on the planet" may be misplaced. However, the most direct evidence for cuteness came from a source that has a potential conflict of interest. The question remains unresolved. Further research is needed.
posted by aniola at 10:40 PM on October 11, 2022 [6 favorites]
Fun fact: I was once stalked by cassowaries while I was attempting to deactivate an animatronic Tyrannosaurus. They are scary beasts.
posted by brundlefly at 10:52 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
posted by brundlefly at 10:52 AM on October 12, 2022 [2 favorites]
Thank you for materially improving my day, if not my week. Birbs are good.
posted by Space Kitty at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2022
posted by Space Kitty at 9:09 PM on October 12, 2022
« Older Does lasagna baking time scale linearly with dish... | Resources for studying medicine that explain "why" Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
Cassowaries have a reputation for attacking humans.
posted by Zumbador at 1:18 PM on October 10, 2022