English: Cardinalis cardinalis (Linnaeus, 1758) - female northern cardinal in Newark, Ohio, USA (photo by Mary Ellen St. John).

Northern cardinals have a short, stout bill, adapted for cracking seeds. This species is the only bright red bird with a crest. Both males and females have rosy red to orangish red beaks. Females are also crested, but their plumage is dominated by yellowish gray coloration. The plumage of both sexes varies in color intensity. Brighter-colored individuals are observed to be more dominant.

Classification: Animalia, Chordata, Vertebrata, Aves, Passeriformes, Cardinalidae

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Birds are small to large, warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered, bipedal vertebrates capable of powered flight (although some are secondarily flightless). Many scientists characterize birds as dinosaurs, but this is consequence of the physical structure of evolutionary diagrams. Birds aren’t dinosaurs. They’re birds. The logic & rationale that some use to justify statements such as “birds are dinosaurs” is the same logic & rationale that results in saying “vertebrates are echinoderms”. Well, no one says the latter. No one should say the former, either.

However, birds are evolutionarily derived from theropod dinosaurs. Birds first appeared in the Triassic or Jurassic, depending on which avian paleontologist you ask. They inhabit a wide variety of terrestrial and surface marine environments, and exhibit considerable variation in behaviors and diets.