Preserved footprints indicate non-avian dinosaurs may have utilized wings for running

Tiny footprints in South Korea symbolize the moment 120 million years ago when dinosaurs used their wings to take giant leaps across the ground, marking the earliest evidence that these extinct animals used wings to move. It is a trace of.

The creature was a bird of prey and was not part of the lineage that led to birds, but it is unclear whether it was fully capable of flight. But he says the evidence supports previous ideas that aerodynamics evolved multiple times over prehistoric railroad tracks. alexander dececchi at Dakota State University in South Dakota.

“It's pretty rare to find these types of things.” [pre-flight] “When you look at footprints and find them from an animal that isn't even a bird, that's pretty special,” he says.

Velociraptor and other raptors (dromaeosaurids) are the ancestors of modern birds, but the lineage split into birds and nonavians, or “paraavians,” about 170 million years ago. Despite having feathers and wings, Paravian dinosaurs generally appeared to lack the wingspan needed to offset their weight, team members said. michael pitman At the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

But Pittman, DeCecchi, and their colleagues It is thought that some paraavian dinosaurs may be capable of flight.Based on upper body muscles, birds at least glide before full flight evolved. Their suspicions grew stronger as they examined more than 2,600 rows of dinosaur footprints around the world.

A set of railroad tracks discovered during construction of a shopping center in southeastern South Korea showed surprisingly long spacing Between the steps of a bird of prey the size of a sparrow called Dromaeosauriformipes larus.

Taking into account their relative leg lengths, their stride length is three times that of an ostrich and nearly twice that of a kangaroo rat. “It was a serendipitous moment, and I thought maybe I was doing something other than running,” Pittman said.

Further calculations and comparisons with the fossil anatomy showed that he was right. In other words, this animal could not take such long strides with its legs alone. It was clearly flapping or gliding, perhaps during takeoff or landing, Pittman said.

“Most feathered dinosaurs probably did what this guy did, which is use their wings to run, jump, brake, and change direction,” Pittman said.

“When it comes to wings and flight, it's really a mosaic of evolution,” he says. Roman Pintor At the French National Museum of Natural History in Paris. “It's not a question of 'you have it' when 'you don't have it.'’We need to zoom out a little more.”