Birds take flight with help from Sonic hedgehog

Feathers are amazing evolutionary innovations that allowed birds to conquer the sky. A study led by Matthew Towers (University of Sheffield, UK) and Marian Ros (University of Cantabria, Spain) and published in the journal ...

Baby pterodactyls could fly from birth

A breakthrough discovery reveals that pterodactyls, extinct flying reptiles, had a remarkable ability—they could fly from birth. The importance of this discovery is highlighted by the fact that no other living vertebrates ...

New research explores the mechanics of how birds flock

Wildlife researchers have long tried to understand why birds fly in flocks and how different types of flocks work. A new study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explores the mechanics and benefits of the ...

Ancient birds out of the egg running

The ~125 million-year-old Early Cretaceous fossil beds of Los Hoyas, Spain, have long been known for producing thousands of petrified fish and reptiles (Fig. 1). However, researchers have uncovered an extremely rare, nearly ...

Songbirds set long-distance migration record

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have studied flight routes to determine how far willow warblers migrate in the autumn. The results show that the willow warbler holds a long-distance migration record in the ten-gram ...

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