File:Fregata magnificens (magnificent frigatebirds) (Catto Cay, offshore San Salvador Island, Bahamas) (15576299611).jpg

Fregata magnificens Mathews, 1914 - magnificent frigatebird nesting colony on Catto Cay in Grahams Harbour, offshore from northern shore of San Salvador Island, eastern Bahamas. The black-headed individuals are adults and the white-headed individuals are juveniles.

Magnificent frigatebirds (Family Fregatidae) are moderately large, tropical to subtropical seabirds with a long, bifurcated tail and an unusually long wingspan. They seldom land at the ocean surface, but inhabit islands and marine coastlines. Adult plumage is mostly blackish. Adult male frigatebirds have a red throat pouch, which they enlarge while engaged in courtship display (<a href="http://www.junglewalk.com/animal-pictures/102/Magnificent-Frigatebird-8514.jpg" rel="nofollow">www.junglewalk.com/animal-pictures/102/Magnificent-Frigat...</a>).

Natural distribution: tropical to subtropical Atlantic & eastern Pacific.

Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Aves, Suliformes, Fregatidae

Birds are small to large, warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered, bipedal vertebrates capable of powered flight (although some are secondarily flightless). Many scientists characterize birds as dinosaurs, but this is consequence of the physical structure of evolutionary diagrams. Birds aren’t dinosaurs. They’re birds. The logic & rationale that some use to justify statements such as “birds are dinosaurs” is the same logic & rationale that results in saying “vertebrates are echinoderms”. Well, no one says the latter. No one should say the former, either.