Ecology
The wings of modern flying birds are much more complicated than the wings of the first prehistoric birds, which, due to their hard layers of skin, mainly played the role of a kind of aerodynamic surface for sliding in the air space.
This was recently reported by British researchers after conducting a corresponding study.
Scientists answered the question why dinosaurs needed feathers
Scientists from the University of Bristol, together with their American and Canadian colleagues, have come to a consensus that feathers, although they led to evolution in flight, originally appeared in dinosaurs for other purposes. A more detailed study of theropods (a suborder of lizard dinosaurs) convinced scientists that feathers originally acted as a kind of insulating material.
It turns out that layers of ordinary feathers were necessary to keep warm, and only then, as a result of evolution, feathers became an integral part of bird camouflage and a necessary attribute for flights. “At this point in time, we are trying to understand the complex picture of how feathers and birds developed in the dinosaur superorder,” said Jakob Vinther, a researcher from Bristol.
The structure of the bird's feather makes it difficult to describe the evolutionary pattern of wing development
“Today, we think we have understood that feathers were originally designed to isolate the body. Then, in the process of evolution, more complex feathers began to form for so-called demonstration coloring,” Winter explained. The researcher explained that as the structure of feathers changed during evolution, their most important aerodynamic role as a necessary tool for flight began to appear.
“Evolution has shown that feathers are an excellent material that could be used for active air travel; however, it was not until much later, thanks to evolution, that birds developed what we are “We now call wingflaps,” Winter says. “This new study sheds light not only on how birds “came” to fly, but mainly on how feathers became what they they are now a highly unique design in nature.”
Over millions of years of evolution, the forelimbs of dinosaurs have developed into extremely effective feathered wings that allowed dinosaurs to soar into the sky. In fact, this phenomenon is being studied quite seriously by scientists around the world, but so far no one has received a single answer to the main question — why, in fact, dinosaurs took off — no one has received a single answer.
