TORONTO —
A new study investigating the flight capabilities of two tiny dinosaurs with thin, bat-like wings is shedding light on the evolution of avian flight itself — an evolution that, it turns out, had a lot of dead ends and false starts along the way.
Published in the journal iScience earlier this week, the study looked at Yi and Ambopteryx, two dinosaurs who lived around 160 million years ago in the Late Jurassic era of China. Both were believed to have the potential for flight due to the thin membranes stretched between their arms and their bodies.
However, when researchers applied mathematical modelling to these prehistoric creatures, they found that they were nowhere near capable of propelling themselves through the air like birds, and instead would’ve used their small wings only to glide.
“We know some dinosaurs could fly before they evolved into birds,” Hans Larsson, a professor at McGill University and Director of McGill’s Redpath Museum, said in a press release. “What this shows us is that at least one lineage of dinosaurs experimented with a completely different mode of aerial locomotion.”
A ‘WEIRD BAT-WINGED’ PAIR
Researchers scanned fossils of Yi and Ambopteryx with lasers to pick out where the soft tissue would fall on their wings, details that couldn’t be seen under regular light.
Then they reconstructed the dinosaurs’ morphology with computer modelling to see whether they could power themselves to flight, whether by leaping from trees or from the ground. They also changed important variables like wingspan and body weight to assess different scenarios on how they might have flown.
In order to flap their wings with enough force to support their own body, the dinosaurs would’ve needed strong pectoral muscles, which were absent. Ambopteryx could only take off in flight at the lowest estimated body size and highest estimated power level, and Yi could not obtain any lift-off except at body weights researchers said were likely too small to be accurate. In almost all scenarios, the dinosaurs could not get off the ground under their own power.
Even with a running start to help them, the minimum take off speed for Yi would be between 1.1 and three times the maximum possible speed Yi would have been capable of. For Ambopteryx, the minimum take-off speed was even more out of reach, needing to be at least 2.3 to four times their top sprinting speed.
The two dinosaurs were capable of gliding if they leaped from trees — but not well. The research found that compared to other dinosaurs capable of gliding or flying, these two “show poorly developed gliding abilities.”
Both Yi and Ambopteryx would have to launch from higher points in trees at higher speeds than other creatures that glide, and they would be less precise when they landed.
They are thought to have spent most of their lives in trees, eating insects, seeds and plants.
AVIALANS AND THE EVOLUTION OF FLIGHT
Many modern creatures can glide, but only pterosaurs, bats and birds developed the structures necessary to fly by flapping their wings.
It’s well known that modern day birds are descendants of dinosaurs, but this new research adds a complication to the predominant theory of how avian flight came about.
The majority of dinosaurs with flying capabilities — called avialans — have had very similar characteristics and body types, and different families of dinosaurs who have evolved towards flight have started as ground-dwelling creatures and gone through similar body changes — such as a reduction in body size, getting an increased shoulder mobility and developing feathers on their four limbs — before gaining the ability to fly.
This has told a reasonably streamlined tale about the evolution of flight from dinosaurs to birds for the most part, the study explained.
But Yi and Ambopteryx are outliers, showing that dinosaur flight went through some bumps on the road.
Both are therapods, a categorization of carnivorous dinosaurs with hollow bones that includes the T-rex and birds, but they’re also part of a little-understood group called Scansoriopterygidae, which are climbing and gliding dinosaurs.
It’s been posited before that scansoriopterygids could represent an interim stage before avialans, an early model of bird flight that then evolved to support more powered flying. But researchers say this was far more likely an independent attempt at flight, a “failed experimental lineage of early arboreal gliders” unconnected to the evolution of avialan flight.
“Given the large number of independent occurrences of gliding flight within crown mammals, this should perhaps be unsurprising, but it does create a more complex picture of the aerial ecosystem,” the study stated.
“We used to think of birds evolving as a linear trend from their ground-dwelling dinosaur ancestry,” Larsson said in the release.
“We can [now] revise this textbook scenario to one that had an explosive diversity of experimentation, with dinosaurs evolving powered flight several times independently from birds, many having fully feathered wings but with bodies too heavy or wings too small to have gotten off the ground, and now, a weird bat-winged group of dinosaurs that were not only the first arboreal dinosaurs, but ones that glided.”
He added that he feels like researchers are “still just scratching the surface,” of dinosaur biodiversity.
Yi, Ambopteryx and others scansoriopterygids had a short-lived existence, unable to compete with the mammalian gliders and avialan fliers that were evolving around them.
Both dinosaurs went extinct after only a few million years, according to the press release.
“Once birds got into the air, these two species were so poorly capable of being in the air that they just got squeezed out,” lead author Thomas Dececchi, an assistant professor of biology at Mount Marty University, said in the release. “Maybe you can survive a few million years underperforming, but you have predators from the top, competition from the bottom, and even some small mammals adding into that, squeezing them out until they disappeared.”
Gliding isn’t an efficient way to get around, as you have to climb to a great height first to travel any sort of distance, he explained.
“It’s not efficient, but it can be used as an escape hatch. It’s not a great thing to do, but sometimes it’s a choice between losing a bit of energy and being eaten. Once they were put under pressure, they just lost their space.
“They couldn’t win on the ground,” he said. “They couldn’t win in the air. They were done.”
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
