Prehistoric Birds Were Poor Flyers

darjeeling

It must be Archaeopteryx week.

Today's Guardian has a story on a new Science paper that says Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis feathers weren't robust enough for proper flight. Link

The Guardian wrote:

Feathers of earliest birds 'would not have supported flight'

Early feathers evolved for insulation and display were barely strong enough for gliding, says report in journal Science.

The first birds to make a mark in the evolutionary record might have sported an impressive plumage, but they would never have got off the ground, scientists say.

An examination of fossilised feathers belonging to the ancient birds Confuciusornis and Archaeopteryx shows their wings were too weak to support the birds in flight.

At the very best, the creatures might have used their wings to glide between trees or from vantage points to lower ground, researchers report today in the journal Science.

Robert Nudds and Gareth Dyke, at the universities of Manchester and Dublin [UCD actually - but it is the Grauniad] respectively [...]

Great result for the local boy.

marco_polo

More activity from UCD as Dr Gareth Dyke at University College Dublin was involved in this research and paper with a collegue from Manchester University.

The evolution of flight took longer than previously thought with the ancestors of modern birds "rubbish" at flying, if they flew at all, according to scientists.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100526100612.htm

For their latest paper Dr Nudds and Dr Dyke applied a novel biomechanical analysis to the flight feathers of the early birds Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis to find out if they were strong enough to allow flight.

They found that the dinosaur feathers' much thinner central stem (rachis) must have been solid or they would have broken under the lift forces generated during flight or by gusts of wind. This solid structure is very different to modern birds, whose rachises are broader, hollow straws. If the dinosaurs' feathers had had hollow rachises, they would not have been able to fly at all.

"These are surprising results," says Dr Nudds, whose findings are published in Science.

"I thought the feathers would be strong enough with a hollow rachis to fly but they weren't. Even with a solid rachis, they were not very good. These dinosaurs were rubbish at flying.

"This pushes the origin of flapping flight to after Archaeopteryx and Confuciusornis. It must have come much later."

Galvasean

Bit lat to the party there Marco

marco_polo

Galvasean wrote: »

Bit lat to the party there Marco

Damn I knew I was getting a slight sense of Deja Vu.

Well you stole all my other potential threads last night .

Last time I ever use a 'news' story from sciencedaily without a search. That is twice they have got me now in a few short months .