Wings may be the obvious choice when studying the connection between dinosaurs and birds, but a pair of paleontologists prefer drumsticks. That part of the leg, they say, is where fibular reduction among some dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago helped make it possible for peacocks to strut, penguins to waddle, and turkeys to trot.
Wings may be the obvious choice when studying the connection between dinosaurs and birds, but a pair of Yale paleontologists prefer drumsticks. That part of the leg, they say, is where fibular reduction among some dinosaurs tens of millions of years ago helped make it possible for peacocks to strut, penguins to waddle, and turkeys to trot.
Yet the fibula had been largely overlooked by paleontologists and other scientists, often viewed as merely a small remnant of a once-larger physiological feature. The idea that the shortened fibula had a distinct evolutionary benefit was relatively unexplored. They also collected X-ray videos from an iguana and an alligator and examined the shapes of leg bones in other birds, including a penguin, an ostrich, an owl, and a crane.
Next, the researchers searched for the evolutionary origins of the shortened fibula in birds -- and found their answer in certain species of dinosaurs. The new study is part of Bhullar and Manafzadeh's ongoing research into the evolution of animal motion, based on their novel method for visualizing how ancient animals moved by comparing their joints with those of modern animals.The ability to regulate body temperature, a trait all mammals and birds have today, may have evolved among some dinosaurs early in the Jurassic period about 180 million years ago. The new study ...
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