Galápagos Flightless Cormorant
Last updated: June 30, 2001
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Flightless Cormorant
Here is a flightless cormorant sitting on a nest and swimming in the ocean,
looking for food. The ancestors of this bird presumably could fly, but with the
lack of predators on the Galápagos Islands, the bird had no need to fly and
its wings gradually evolved into stubs useless for flight. The bird can swim
like a fish, however.
These photos show the cormorant with the wings in normal position as well as
extended as he (she?) takes a jump as he runs across the rocks.