“Frigatebirds are designed for an aerial life” writes a group of French scientists in Nature, vol 421, p333, 23 Jan 2003. Using altimeters and satellite tracking technology the scientists analysed the flight patterns of frigatebirds and found they spend their lives soaring and gliding using thermals to give them uplift to heights of 2,500m. They even spend the night flying, an unusual characteristic of birds previously observed only in Swifts. Frigate birds have the lowest wing loading of any bird, i.e. a large wing span area for a low body mass, and the scientists concluded frigatebirds evolved this, and their ability to fly for long periods of time as “extreme adaptations for finding food in poorly provisioned tropical waters.”
Editorial Comment: We certainly agree frigatebirds were “designed” for an aerial life, but they didn’t get that way by adaptation. It makes more sense to believe frigatebirds with their superb aerodynamics were created to soar. As the world’s oceans degenerated following Noah’s flood, these birds have been able to exploit a food source that birds less aerodynamically advantaged could not exploit. “Survival of the fittest” is a real phenomenon, but it doesn’t produce evolution. It simply enables the already fit to survive. The rest move on or die. (Ref. frigatebirds, flight)