Tag Archive for 'Tinamou'

Flightless or poorly-flighted modern, and recently extinct, paleognath birds with their respective egg sizes. Lithornis, an ancient flying paleognath bird, is depicted and has an unknown egg size. Image credit: Hyunjoo Shin / CC BY 4.0.

Ornithologists Construct New Phylogenetic Family Tree for Paleognath Birds

Feb 1, 2023 by Natali Anderson

About 50 species of birds on Earth today do not belong to the same group as the other 10,000 currently in existence. Known as the paleognaths, this small...

Embryological series of Japanese quail (Coturnix coturnix japonica) showing the transition from ancestral to derived pelvic states across avian prehatching ontogeny: (a) pelvic reconstructions along the evolutionary transition to living birds; note that pelves are shown as examples of character states and are not in one-to-one correspondence with ontogenetic stages; (b) during ontogeny, the ilium extends first posteriorly and then anteriorly, the pubis retroverts, the tail becomes relatively reduced and a transient pubic boot appears at intermediate ontogenetic stages; (c) the CFL (M. caudofemoralis longus homologue) is large during early ontogenetic stages; the IF (M. iliofemoralis homologue) originates smaller and further back on the ilium before expanding anteriorly to the derived condition and never splits into two muscles as seen in the adult; and PIFE1+2 (Mm. puboischiofemoralis externus 1 et 2 homologues) fail to fully differentiate until after the pubis is retroverted; muscles that are not highlighted are in gray; (d) the derived pelvic spinal nerve arrangement in birds (top), with additional spinal nerves contributing to the sacral plexus and nerves in Coturnix embryos (bottom). Scale bars - 1 mm in (b and d), 2 mm in (c). Image credit: Griffin et al., doi: 10.1038/s41586-022-04982-w.

Study: Developing Bird Hip Bone Passes through Ancestral Dinosaurian Conditions

Aug 8, 2022 by News Staff

Living birds have bodies substantially modified from the ancestral reptilian condition. The bird pelvis (hip bone) in particular experienced major changes...

Computer simulations of running locomotion in a modern tinamou bird (brown) and the extinct theropod dinosaur Coelophysis (green). Gray tiles - 50 cm. Image credit: Bishop et al., doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abi7348.

Bipedal Dinosaurs Wagged Their Tail while Running, New Study Reveals

Sep 23, 2021 by Enrico de Lazaro

The tail of bipedal non-avian dinosaurs played a role analogous to the swinging arms of humans during walking and running, according to new research led...