A lamentable instance is that of certain flightless Rails, recently extinct or sub-fossil, on the isalnds of Mauritius, Rodriguez and Chatham.
Starting with the kiwi and cassowary, people have got into the habit of confounding flightless with wingless conditions.
This keel is much reduced in the New Zealand parrot, Stringops, less in various flightless rails, in the dodo and solitaire.
A largeflightless goose, Cnemiornis, allied to the Australian Cereopsis, and the gigantic rapacious Harpagornis, have died out recently, with the moas.
Birds which are originally immigrants from North America: Podicipedidae, with the flightless Centropelma on Lake Titicaca; Ceryle, the only genus of kingfishers in the New World; all the Oscines.
The process of molting places heavy energy demands on birds, and particularly on waterfowl whose molt results in a flightless period; few areas provide adequate protection from predators necessary during this period.
Some alcids and loons are also flightless for short periods and, hence, particularly vulnerable to oil spills during molt.
Sea ducks too, because of their diving behavior, propensity for flocking, and flightless molt period, would be very vulnerable to oil spills.
Flightless animals have no means of immigration, hence little probability of colonizing islands.
One instance was reported for 1975, when nearshore waters froze early and flightless eiders were seen sitting on the ice near Pt.
Nor are eiders the only species that are flightless when they molt.
The one outstanding feature which does distinguish these birds he fails entirely to appreciate--and this is their flightless condition.
A study of living flightless birds, and birds that are well on the way to this condition, will afford us a ready answer.
Perhaps, however, Nature had already begun the killing off of most of these flightless birds before man came on the scene.
Nearly the whole of Australia, however, was at one time frequented by the Emu, a large, flightless bird only second in size to the Ostrich.
It is flightless and entirely dependent on its short powerful legs to carry it out of danger.
Flightless rails have apparently developed in the absence of predation.
Of the older writers only Leguat appears to have described the Rodriguez flightless rail.
In several instances I have treated of extinct flightless species under genera including existing species capable of flight.
So to-day we find them either very similar to what they were when their island home was made an island home, or else even degenerated into flightless creatures.
Here we find the flightless Apteryx and a flightless goose now extinct, also the extinct Moa.
The Kiwis are still in existence, but the Moas and some of the other flightless birds have died out since the arrival of the Maori man, who killed and ate them.
Dogs, cats and the European rats came in early with the settlers, and destroyed the flightless birds, driving them for shelter to the mountains.
Going a little farther, we might be pretty sure that the feathers of a water-fowl would be thick and close; those of strictly terrestrial birds, such as the ostrich and other flightless forms, lax and long.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "flightless" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
