Researchers at Oregon State University have made a fundamental new discovery about how birds breathe and have a lung capacity that allows for flight – and the finding means it's unlikely that birds descended from any known theropod dinosaurs.
The conclusions add to other evolving evidence that may finally force many paleontologists to reconsider their long-held belief that modern birds are the direct descendants of ancient, meat-eating dinosaurs, OSU researchers say.
"It's really kind of amazing that after centuries of studying birds and flight we still didn't understand a basic aspect of bird biology," said John Ruben, an OSU professor of zoology. "This discovery probably means that birds evolved on a parallel path alongside dinosaurs, starting that process before most dinosaur species even existed."
These studies were just published in The Journal of Morphology, and were funded by the National Science Foundation.
It gets REALLY good.
BAND, fwiw, means Birds Are Not Dinosaurs. I subscribe to BAD: Birds Are Dinosaurs.
3 comments:
Two things. First, "long-held" belief? Don't make me laugh. The idea that birds are descended from dinosaurs has really only been a major idea since the 1960's, when the raptors started popping up. And it didn't only really become accepted until the nineties and early years of the new millenium, when the feathered dinos were found in China.
As for BAND, I thought the majority of them were dead (or at least moved on to other topics), minus the few die-hard crazies like Larry Martin.
How does that sayin' go? Funeral by funeral, theory advances....
Huxley believed the BAD theory, Heilmann rejected it because of a lack of dino wishbones - he would've changed his mind otherwise - and the BANDits haven't updated their knowledge of dinosaurs since c.1970, leading to idiocy like Alan Feduccia claiming the 'raptors (veloci-, ovi- and so on) are flightless birds and NOT theropods. And the BANDits are still claiming "Longisquama" as a bird ancestor... Aye Karumba!
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