This was not some clumsy dinosaur “learning” to fly. Its feet were almost indistinguishable from modern hawks, suggesting that Microraptor too was a skilled aerial predator capable of taking prey “on the wing”. Most intriguing was Microraptor, the so-called “four-winged theropod” because it had long flight feathers on its legs and arms a kind of dinosaurian biplane. Tommy from Arad/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY Serious surprisesĪt one end of the spectrum, we might expect something like Anchiornis – which has feathers but still had the long tail and features of a ground-based dinosaur – to have few or no indications of the aerial lifestyle of a more bird-like species, such as Confuciusornis.īut this turned out to be only partly true, and there were serious surprises along the way. They identified about a dozen fossils that preserved not only feathers, but, more importantly, the skin and scales surrounding the feet.Ī well-preserved fossil of Confuciusornis sanctus. Using LSF, they pored over more than 1,000 fossils of early birds and their dinosaurian relatives. This method quite literally illuminates details in fossils that can’t be seen (or are indistinct) with the naked eye. They transitioned from simple hair-like filaments in ground-dwelling theropods to branching and increasingly more complex modern-style feathers in pennaraptorans (the group most closely related to and including birds), and finally birds themselves.īack in 2015, my colleagues Michael Pittman at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Tom Kaye at the Foundation for Scientific Advancement pioneered an almost miraculous form of photography called laser stimulated fluorescence (LSF). Illuminating scales and feathersįor more than 25 years, extraordinary fossils of feathered dinosaurs have been emerging at a tremendous rate from Early Cretaceous (roughly 145 million to 100 million years ago) rocks in China.įossilised feathers on a slew of species show precisely how feathers changed over time. It had long struck me that if we had the right fossils – if we could only look at their feet – we might find out more about how certain dinosaurs and the first birds behaved, or even hunted. Meanwhile, birds that spend more time on the ground (such as emus and kiwis) or perching (crows, sparrows, and so on) have entirely different feet altogether, adapted to the task at hand – or foot. Raptorial birds that specialise in catching fish also have spiky scales on the underside of the foot to assist in restraining their slippery catch. Raptorial birds – think the likes of hawks and falcons – often have large, protruding toe pads that act like little fingers to help them grip their prey. But all bird feet are not created equal, as the jobs differ between species. They’re naturally well adapted to do those jobs. Multitasking feetīirds lack “proper” hands, so their feet have to do twice the work – perching, walking, grasping, manipulating food. So, we can use birds as a model for reconstructing the behaviour and lifestyles of extinct dinosaurs.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |