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Why do golden eagles need to be the second fastest bird in the world if they don't take aerial prey? They couldn't possibly hit ground prey at full tilt without doing themselves serious damage. Is it just to close down their prey from distance?
So It's harder for unscrupulous gamekeepers to shoot them.
It's so they can evade their only natural predator, the Stuka dive bomber
Evolutionary supercar? Top speed limit is 70mph, but it's pretty cool to own a car that'll do well over that. Golden Eagle is basically Jeremy Clarkson with a nicer frock.
They will still have to identify a potential target and close in on it. Given they hunt in open mountains they have large distances to cover to get to their prey before they run off...
So what's the fastest?
The fastest bird in the world is my wife when she sees a sale
"So what’s the fastest?"
Perry Green.
Peregrine Falcon. 390 kmh apparently. 200 and change?
With nostril cones that inspired the design of the modern jet engine...
Fastest bird is an advisory,not a target.Golden Eagles just 'make progress'.
Ever seen a mountain hare at full throttle?
They need to carry that speed over the ground AND descend.
I would have thought a sea eagle would have been quicker if we're measuring dive speed, or on the wing a swift or swallow?
swift or swallow?
African or European?
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px; background-color: #eeeeee;">Why do golden eagles need to be the second fastest bird in the world if they don’t take aerial prey? </span>
For there to be a 'why' you have to believe that someone or something sentient had a reason for things being the way they are.
swift or swallow?
Kind of you to ask
"So what’s the fastest?"
The Andean KOMdor.
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 16px;">For there to be a ‘why’ you have to believe that someone or something sentient had a reason for things being the way they are.</span>
....or in evolutionary advantage.
....or frame the question ‘what is the selective advantage conferred by (insert trait here?’
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px; background-color: #eeeeee;">African or European?</span>
You're a very naughty boy...
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With nostril cones that inspired the design of the modern jet engine…
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You mean the various low drag air intakes on jets ?
I think it’s the inlets which slow incoming air.
"<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px;">….or frame the question ‘what is the selective advantage conferred by (insert trait here?’'</span>
Whats the selective advantage of my appendix, funny bone and green eyes. Whats the selective advantage of freckles or earlobes. Natural selection is a factor in evolution in the sense that a physiological or behavioural difference can matter enough for members of a species expressing that difference to survive when the rest of the population dies in infancy.
Thats the unpalatable aspect of evolution - that near extinctions are what drives the process forward - the outcomes of natural selection and evolution and fascinating and beautiful but you wouldn't want to be a part of that process- barely surviving to breeding age because you've got dimples whilst everyone around dies in childhood because they haven't.
But aspects of any species' physiology or behaviour can exist even though they don't really matter - theres no selective advantage or disadvantage.
For there to be a ‘why’ you have to believe that someone or something sentient had a reason for things being the way they are.
Why?
I think the "don't take aerial prey" thing is a red herring, isn't it?
When you're attacking something on the ground, the faster you come at it, the less time it has to react and escape, and the more likely you are to catch it. There's simply got to be an advantage to being quicker - and therefore some selection pressure towards speed - as long as you 're not sacrificing strike accuracy or increasing your chances of hurting yourself in a crash.
<span style="color: #444444; font-size: 12px;">The Andean KOMdor</span>
Their terminal dive speed might just be a side-effect of something else that has a selective advantage. In other words, being fast and being able to dive onto prey might be very important and result in a physique that gives very high terminal velocity, but the terminal velocity itself doesn't have a selective advantage.
An analogy would be the F15, which has a very large wing and high power to weight ratio in order to be very agile in air-to-air combat, but has the side effect of being very effective at carrying bombs, even though air-to-ground attack was not included in the original design.