As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Thursday 25 October 2012

Reanalysis of 4-Winged Dinosaur May Illuminate Evolution of Bird Flight


RALEIGH, N.C.—How did the ancestors of birds evolve the ability to fly? That birds are descended from small, meat-eating dinosaurs is established. Exactly how the creatures conquered the air remains a mystery, however. Now the authors of a new study of a controversial feathered dinosaur say they have resolved a key aspect of the problem—namely, how the animals controlled their flight once they became airborne.

Two theories have dominated the long-running debate over how bird flight evolved. In the so-called cursorial scenario, the ability to fly emerged in terrestrial dinosaurs that raced across the ground with their arms outstretched and leaped into the air after prey or out of harm’s way, their wing feathers providing lift. The arboreal scenario, in contrast, supposes that flight arose in tree-dwelling dinosaurs that were built for gliding and started flapping their arms in order to stay aloft longer.


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