Pages

Wednesday, January 5, 2022

Bird Is The Word-Dinosaurs Are Now Birds

 

Bird Is The Word

A fossilized dinosaur egg more than 66 million years old revealed there is a link between modern-day birds and the extinct giant reptiles of millions of years ago, USA Today reported.

About 20 years ago, a Chinese mining company found a dino egg in China’s southern Jiangxi province. The egg was later put in storage. Recently, a research team examined it and found the bone remains of an embryo.

Naming it “Baby Yingliang,” scientists said the discovery will “help us answer a lot of questions about dinosaur growth and reproduction with it.”

In their paper, they wrote that Baby Yingliang was an oviraptorosaur, a species closely related to birds and belonging to the theropod group. Theropods were carnivorous dinos that had small forelimbs and walked on two feet – such as the terrifying Tyrannosaurus rex and velociraptor.

But the team also found another connection to birds: The embryo had a very similar tucking position that is only seen in birds before they hatch, marking the first time such a position was seen in non-avian animals.

The position involved having its feet on the side of its head and its back against the shell. Today’s birds stay in that position before hatching – otherwise, they have a higher chance of dying before birth.

Researchers suggested that modern-day birds’ hatching practices could have originated from non-flying dinosaurs but more research needs to be done to understand how the two species are linked.


No comments: