GEN at LAE is a student - led group that aims to promote to tackle misinformation, introduce campaigns on differe international campaigns/promote intersectionality. I recently discovered, to my horror, that the gifts in ‘ The 12 days of Christmas ’ all consist of common names for birds and that the singer ’ s true love is probably an ornithologist who needs to be investigated for animal cruelty. Discussing this with friends, we were brought back to the age - old question of ‘ Have you ever seen a baby pigeon? ’ You would think with the mass abundance of pigeons on the streets and skies you would manage to catch a glimpse of these elusive creatures, yet they still manage to remain out of sight of the public. The Age of the Dinosaurs; How prehisto have impacted human aging - Student
Why is this the case? Well, it so happens to be that baby pigeons, also known as squabs, spend all their youth in their birth nests, going from a scraggily looking ball of puff to your everyday pigeon, indistinguishable from every other on the street. However, this left us with more questions than answers: if every pigeon looks the same when they leave the nest, how are you able to differentiate ages?
Compared to humans, most birds, reptiles, and amphibians do not tend to have any significant physical identifying factors of aging. You would often see documentaries of cute little silver or brown baby penguins waddling in - between their parents' feet, but what lies for its future behind its adult feathers? If pigeons are not dying gruesome deaths, how can you tell when one is nearing its end? Well in this case humans are the outlier; we have a rapid marked aging processes and can easily distinguish the difference between a 10 - year - old and King Charles III. Other animals like insects display physical aging characteristics as seen in both metamorphosis types. In complete metamorphosis the difference is seen in distinct stages; egg, larva, pupa, and adult. While incomplete is more ‘ human ’ in gradual aging, going from egg to nymph to adult. These stages are a result of years of selection pressures and are an evolutionary
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