Now, a new fossil discovered in 2011 and analyzed in a recent study published inNature appears to provide the missing link. The well-preserved skull reveals key bird-like features, including a ...

New research confirms that modern birds retain many ancient instincts inherited from their dinosaur ancestors. From complex social behaviors to survival tactics, birds act as living windows into ...

Modern birds capable of flight all have a specialized wing structure called the propatagium without which they could not fly. The evolutionary origin of this structure has remained a mystery, but ...

Birds are the only group of dinosaurs that survived the asteroid-induced mass extinction 66 million years ago. But not all the birds alive at the time made it. Why the ancestors of modern birds ...

Since the 1960s, fossil discoveries have confirmed the scientific consensus that birds evolved from the group of predatory ...

In modern birds, such behavior helps them to conserve body heat; it likely served a similar purpose for maniraptoran dinosaurs that also curled up at bedtime, according to the study.

A re-analysis of a 66.7 million-year-old fossilised bird skeleton found on the Dutch-Belgian border in the 1990s has “upended” one of the core assumptions about the evolution of modern birds ...

Modern birds have asymmetrical feathers on their wings, which help steer the flow of air to generate lift. But Caihong juji had asymmetrical feathers only on its tail.

In modern birds, such behavior helps them to conserve body heat; it likely served a similar purpose for maniraptoran dinosaurs that also curled up at bedtime, according to the study.

Fossil ‘overturns more than a century of knowledge about origin of modern birds’ Each of the roughly 11,000 species of birds on Earth today is classified into one of two groups, based on the ...