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| A male frigatebird in flight. Courtesy: Harvey Barrison/Flickr |
It's unfortunate that there's so much neatness surrounding the frigatebird because in reality they're assholes; mostly the guido dudes. Let's dig deep into this asshole and discover what it's constructed with first, and then we'll overpower it with an enema of neatness.
Frigatebirds are the Jersey Shore douchebags of the tropical seabird family. In order to court a mate these GTL seabirds inflate their red gular throat pouches, vibrate their outstretched wings, produce a drumming sound by vibrating their bills together, and sometimes give a whistling call. They're literally bird guidos who show up to the club, bust their chests out, shimmy, and holla at ya girl. Then, after a female has chosen a mate and they copulate, Paulie D gathers some sticks for a nest and the female constructs it and it's cemented with guano. Both Paulie D and his lady take turns incubating the egg for 41-55 days and take turns feeding the chick for around 3 months. Then after about 3 months Paulie D gets fed up with the responsibilities of raising a kid and leaves his lady to find another birdie to shake his sac at without even paying child support.  |
| A great frigatebird chick wearing a Gucci fur coat that was probably stolen. |
Finally, not only does Paulie D frigatebird fly the coop when parenting starts getting real, he also gets his food from through theft (to be fair, the females also engage in larceny). Frigatebirds are known as pelagic kleptoparasites. Pelagic meaning they feed in the open ocean as opposed to around costal areas. And kleptoparsites since they gain a large portion of their diet by harassing other birds and steal their catches. Guess it shows that all frigatebirds are essentially products of broken homes and lack that stable parenting environment with both a mom and dad present.
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| A female great frigatebird |
Now to the neatness. First, frigatebird feathers aren't waterproof so they can't land in the water...sooooo in order to stay aloft for an extended period of time, they intentionally fly into clouds. They hitch rides on the warm air updrafts from the sea surface to the top of a cloud. Recent research documented that some of the birds stayed aloft for nearly 2 months without landing. One bird flew nearly 40 miles without a wing flap. They also have been know to reach altitudes of over 12,000ft above the sea surface, nearly freezing conditions, and unheard of for a tropical bird and probably the highest relative to the surface of any bird. WHOA! Neatness overload. One thing that helps the birds achieve this is that their wingspan can reach up to 7.5ft and they have the largest wing area to body weight ratio of any bird. The size of one's ratio is important for anyone, but REALLY important for these peculating FUBU-wearing throat puffers.
Researchers also discovered that winds that form the updrafts in the atmosphere that the frigatebirds ride also disrupt waves at the sea surface. When the waves are disrupted, deeper water tends to rise carrying with it small microscopic plants like phytoplankton that attract small fish. Then bigger fish eat the smaller fish which creates a feeding frenzy that the frigate birds take advantage of to grub out. So not only is Paulie D a degenerate klepto dad, but he also catches free rides on the atmospheric rollercoaster of air currents, getting on and off when he needs a fish sandwich. Tubular! How neat is that?
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| Frigatebird Range |
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