Discover Top Posts Tagged with #evolution of flight

Oviraptor, Khaan, Citipati - by ABelov2014

#natural history #palaeontology #paleoart #prehistoric life #prehistoric animals #oviraptor #theropod #citipati #evolution of flight #avian dinosaurs #dinosaurs #paleontology #prehistoric

Yo the catch 22 of birds sounds like an incredibly interesting lecture please elaborate :0

YES

Okay so the thing is, feathers didn’t evolve for flight. They were insulation and display first, and they’ve been around since before the dinosaurs: some of the most recent research (1) suggests they go back to or before the common ancestors of pterosaurs and dinosaurs, aka the mid-Triassic or earlier.

In addition to THAT, basically all dinosaurs came from bipeds(2): the big guys like sauropods and stegosaurus were secondarily quadrupedal. As such, when birds started to evolve towards flight, they were already both covered in feathers and bipedal.

There’s a debate (3) on whether bird flight evolved “trees down”, where they evolved gliding first, jumping out of trees and using their long arm and leg feathers to slow the fall, or “ground up”, where they evolved FLAPPING first, using long feathers on their outstretched arms while running to help keep them balanced and help them jump higher while hunting or escaping predators.

Personally, I prefer the synthesis hypothesis which suggests a combination of strategies including using wings to slow their fall, run, and help gain height when getting into trees/cliffs, but that’s not relevant right now.

What’s important is the fact that by the time birds developed flight, they’d locked themselves into having hyperspecialized limbs: legs ONLY for running and jumping, arms ONLY for flying and flapping.

Since they were small, this wasn’t a problem! But it doesn’t scale super well, and to see why, let’s take a brief tangent into pterosaurs.

Pterosaurs are the biggest fliers that have ever existed, with some species having an estimated mass of up to 550lb. Despite this, even the largest individuals would have been able to take off without an assist, for one reason: they got off the ground with a “catapult” launch(4)(5).

Pterosaurs were quadrupeds, but that’s not their biggest asset. They used their wings for flying, as you’d expect; however, they also used them on the ground with a gait that functioned similarly to a gorilla or a vampire bat, “front wheel drive” as it were. With a catapult launch, they “jumped” off the ground primarily with their wings, resulting in the same primary muscles being used across all forms of locomotion.

This means that, if they needed to get bigger, pterosaurs could just keep pumping more energy into making the wings bigger as well, with no impact on their ability to fly or take off: it’s hypothesized that the largest pterosaurs were limited more by their hearts’ ability to pump blood to their extremities than they were by the ability to fly.

By comparison, in order to get bigger birds have to both add more leg AND add more wing. More weight needs bigger wings to lift it, but bigger wings need bigger legs to jump high enough for the wings to flap, but bigger legs need bigger wings to carry them during flight, and so on.

There comes a point where the legs can’t jump high enough to give the wings room to flap, and then they’re stuck. A lot of modern larger birds are partially reliant on gravity/wind assists or take off from the water because they can’t easily get high enough on their own, and these birds are all like, under 40lb. Even with environmental assists, balancing two sets of limbs to maintain the ability to both walk AND fly means that birds have a size limit: the largest flight-capable bird (6) that’s ever existed had a mass of up to 160lb, and probably wouldn’t have been able to get off the ground at all without a strong headwind or a cliff.

Essentially, in order to get bigger birds have to both add more leg AND add more wing but there’s a limit on how much they can add of each before they just can’t get off the ground, and that’s the catch-22 of birds!

1. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-018-0728-7

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kongonaphon

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_avian_flight

4. https://youtu.be/9TKgupAZVzE

5. https://youtu.be/ALziqtuLxBQ

6. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentavis

#birds #the catch-22 of birds #evolution of flight #pterosaurs #[mywriting]#thank you for asking I love talking about this!#sorry it took a minute #I keep forgetting to check my notifs #skies-dragons-and-dreams

The fourth article about the evolution of flight. How did the mammals join the fight for dominance in the air?

In our next article on the evolution of flight, we ask how mammals took to the air, and examine the rise of bats!

Key modifications for flight happened as early as 120 million years ago, a fossil discovery suggests.

New fossil evidence has pushed back a key step in the evolution of bird flight by millions of years.

Skeletal changes that helped birds take to the air happened 120 million years ago, during the hey day of dinosaurs, according to a specimen from China.

Features such as fused bones were thought to be present only in relatively advanced birds, living just before the dinosaurs went extinct. A strong, rigid skeleton is part of the blueprint of modern birds.

The bird, Pterygornis dapingfangensi, lived in north-eastern China during the Early Cretaceous. It is only the second of its kind to be discovered and is exquisitely preserved.

The find ''pushed back the date for these birds' features by over 40 million years,'' said co-researcher, Min Wang from the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

One of the requirements of all flying machines is a structure that is both strong and lightweight. To achieve this in birds meant changes to the basic body plan of most back-boned animals.

During the course of bird evolution, some of the vertebrae and bones of the pelvic girdle fused together, as did some finger and leg bones. And many tail, finger, and leg bones were lost...

#evolution #evolution of flight #bird #ornithology #dinosaur #prehistoric #fossil #china #reptile #bird flight #science #animals #nature

#evolution of flight #birds #wings #dinosaurs

The first in a series all about the evolution of flight, but how did this develop in insects?

This week on Darwin’s Door, we begin a new series on the evolution of flight! First, we are Unlocking the Past on the first time flight evolved in animals, in incests?

#meganeura #flight #evolution of flight #insects #palaeontology #paleontology #paleoblr #palaeoblr #earth science #science #blog #article #Darwin's Door #Unlocking the Past

The Only 4-Winged Flier in History – Microraptor | ExtinctOre

🧩 THE SHOCKING TRUTH ABOUT DINOSAURS WITH FOUR WINGS! Not just 2 - but 4 wings. Meet Microraptor - the crow-sized, iridescent glider that rewrote dinosaur & bird evolution forever. 🔬 A FEATHERED REVOLUTION 🔹 4-winged “tetrapteryx” configuration—feathers on both arms and legs, unlike any modern bird 🔹 Crow-sized marvel: 1–2 kg, 40–80 cm long—lighter than a chicken, yet built for gliding 🔹 Iridescent plumage: fossil melanosomes reveal shimmering blues, greens, and purples 🔹 Mosaic evolution: hollow bones and wishbone meet serrated teeth and killer claw 🌎 AN ANCIENT FOREST GLIDER 🏞️ Jiufotang “China’s Pompeii”—volcanic ash tomb preserving hundreds of Microraptor specimens 🌬️ Biplane posture—hind limbs splayed like auxiliary wings for optimal lift and minimal drag 🔬 Wind-tunnel models and 3D reconstructions show gliding, not powered flight 📡 ECOSYSTEM SUPERGLIDER 🔹 Opportunistic predator: fish, lizards, birds, even small mammals in fossilized stomach contents 🔹 Ambush tactics: stealth glides through canopy, serrated teeth and sharp claws to seize prey 🔹 Survival strategy: agility and camouflage in dense Cretaceous forests—yet prey to larger raptors 🔬 EXTINCTION BY HABITAT LOSS 🔹 Early Cretaceous climate shift: forests fragmented as Earth dried, depriving Microraptor of its tree-top realm 🔹 Competition and ecological turnover—new species outcompete this forest specialist 🔹 A cautionary tale: unique adaptations can’t always save a species from environmental upheaval

#Youtube #natural history #the natural history museaum #microraptor #evolution of flight #early bird #fossils #prehistoric #prehistoric life #paleontology #bird evolution #theropod #the avian odyssey #avian #avian enrichment #avian friends #avian odyssey #extinction

Scientists Uncover the Mysterious Origin of Pterosaurs

Pterosaurs are among the most recognizable creatures from the dinosaur age, yet scientists know very little about their origins. New research finally pinpoints a possible precursor to these flying reptiles. Read more…