The Fabulous Flying Frigate
It is puzzling to this child why a bird shares a name with a medium-sized warship. While some pirates used frigates, they had smaller crews and preferred smaller vessels. Those imposing galleons in pirate movies? Fuggedaboudit! There are several species of frigatebirds, the largest is the magnificent and the smallest is lesser (which still has an impressive body length). The object of our interest today is the great frigatebird . It has several features that affirm intelligent design and challenge Darwin's disciples. Great Frigatebird, Flickr / Makuahine Pa'i Ki'i ( CC BY 2.0 ) One thing in keeping with a pirate theme is that, like pirates, frigatebirds are opportunists. A flying fish escapes sharks but becomes lunch for the frigatebird . It also steals food from other birds. We know of several birds that can fly tremendous distances (such as the arctic tern and the albatross), but this bad boy excels. It seems to shun land and can stay aloft for weeks . This bird's b