Some of the primitive bird species that lived 130 million years ago have adapted to the four wings present in their bodies. This is the result of the latest research team from China.
The findings were revealed based on the results of analysis conducted by the research team on 11 specimens of fossils of four-winged primitive birds found in Liaoning Province, northeast of China.
In a research report published in the journal Science on Thursday (14/3/2013), a team led by Zheng Xiaoting of Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature said that birds originally had four wings before "throwing" feathers on their lower limbs.
According to the researchers, the evolutionary transition to this species "may have an important role in the evolution of flight". Wings on the upper legs are maintained because they can support more efficient flying activity.
Researchers suspect, at that time this ancestor of birds seem to replace the feathers on their rear legs with scales and develop legs that resemble the feet of modern birds. Birds are also preparing to use the back legs to move on the ground, like a robin bird.
Dinosaur species with feathered legs first discovered in China called microraptor and sinornithosaurus. The large feathers at the feet of the microraptor are used for movement in the air, eg to accelerate flights, or glide through the trees or plunge to the ground.
The fossils of primitive birds found this time include several groups of sapeornis, yanornis, and confuciusornis. Estimated by Xu Xing, a team member of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, the fossils are thought to live in the early cretaceous period.
This latest discovery indeed confirmed the existence of four-winged birds on the bird's kinship line. However, the aerodynamic function of the configuration of these species is still debatable.
Zheng believes that the wings in the lower limbs owned by the bird's ancestors must have a function. "(It supports) aerodynamic functions, such as lifting the body of a bird, accelerating the pace, and / or enhancing the maneuverability of birds while flying," Zheng wrote in a report quoted by the New York Times on Thursday.
The results of Zheng's research and his team attracted the attention of other paleontologists, Mark A Norell. The paleontog dinosaur at the American Museum of Natural History in New York says the number of Chinese cretaceous fossil graves has opened up the view of the existence of feathered dinosaurs and the beginning of bird evolution.
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