BIRDS

Birds are the biggest group of land vertebrates characterised by warm blood, feathers, wings, breathing through lungs and egg laying.

Birds are bipedal – feet are usually adapted for perching and never have more than four toes. Hearing and eyesight are well developed but the sense of smell is usually poor. No existing species of bird possesses teeth. Most birds fly but some groups such as ostriches are flightless and others include flightless members. Many communicate by sounds nearly half of all known species are songbirds or by visual displays.

There are approximately 9,000 species of birds in the world, and at Pafos Zoo we hold a large collection with approximately 1000 birds over nearly 200 different species. The bird collection is very diverse with birds from 18 different orders being kept at the Zoo. Around 45% of Pafos Zoo’s birds are threatened or near threatened in the wild.