from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
- adj. Producing eggs that hatch outside the body.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
- adj. Egg-laying; depositing eggs that develop and hatch outside the body as a reproductive strategy.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English
- adj. Producing young from eggs; ; -- opposed to
from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Laying eggs to be hatched, or producing ova to be matured, outside the body of the parent; pertaining to the Ovipara: distinguished from ovoviviparous and from viviparous.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adj. egg-laying
The first platypus specimen, only a skin, reached England in 1799 and it wasn’t until 1884 when it was definitely established that platypuses were oviparous, that is, they laid eggs like reptiles and birds, but unlike the majority of mammals.
But a creature that is not oviparous is not, by definition, a bird, even if one were found that had feathers, had toothless beaks, and flew.
No, I'd say they'd have to be oviparous, and then the eggs would hatch fledglings, unable to fly for quite some time.
"They'd be oviparous, wouldn't they?" asked Bonnard.
This group also have oviparous and viviparous forms.
Was very quick (took literally half an hour for 700 words) even though I had to re-write a few bits that were simply wrong (saying, for instance, that a "seagull gave birth and knowing it was going to die etc." when sea gulls are most definitely oviparous and not viviparous).
The beginnings of a transition from oviparous to viviparous reproduction.
Several other features indicate that laticaudids are ‘primitive’ compared to the hydrophiids: they are generally better able to move on land, and they are mostly (but not entirely) oviparous (whereas hydrophiids are all viviparous).
Laticaudids are less specialised for marine life than hydrophiids, being better able to move on land, and they are mostly (but not entirely) oviparous (whereas hydrophiids are all viviparous).
They might have evolved viviparity, but I personally favour the idea that they were still oviparous and that females laid eggs in terrestrial nests.