Early Birds Sported 4 Wings

Early Birds Sported 4 Wings - More than 100 million years ago, birds living in what is now China sported wings on their legs, a new study of fossils suggests.

Researchers found evidence of large leg feathers in 11 bird specimens from China's Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature. The feathers suggest that early birds had four wings, which may have played a role in the evolution of flight, scientists report in a study published today (March 14) in the journal Science.

Chinese fossils reveal that ancient birds had feathers on their legs.

Most scientists believe that birds evolved from other feathered dinosaurs; this belief is supported by discoveries of fossils of feathery birdlike creatures. In 2000, scientists discovered a nonavian dinosaur with feathers on its arms and legs, called Microraptor, which could probably fly. In addition, specimens of Archaeopteryx, a transitional fossil between modern birds and feathered dinosaurs, show faint featherlike structures on their legs, but the signs are poorly preserved.

Now, leg feathers have been spotted in the 11 museum fossils that had been collected from the Lower Cretaceous Jehol formation in Liaoning, China, from a period about 150 million to 100 million years ago. The feathers are stiff and stick straight out from the birds' legs, and have a large enough surface area to be aerodynamic, the researchers say.

The fossils belong to at least four different groups, including the genera Sapeornis, Yanornis and Confuciusornis, as well as the Enantiornithes group. The findings suggest that leg feathers weren't just an evolutionary rarity.

The researchers also analyzed feathers of other birds and nonbird dinosaurs. Feathers covering the entire leg and feet first developed in dinosaurs, continued in early birds and later disappeared, the results imply. Birds gradually lost feathers on their feet and then their legs, and today, modern birds have wings on their arms only.

Whether these early birds used their leg feathers to fly, and how they may have done so, is up for debate. According to the study researchers, the flat surface formed by the stiff perpendicular feathers could have provided lift and maneuverability.

"These new fossils ?ll in many gaps in our view of the early evolution of birds," animal flight expert David Alexander of the University of Kansas, Lawrence, who was not involved in the study, told Science magazine. Alexander agrees that the feathers probably had some aerodynamic function, "although whether as stabilizers, steering vanes, or full-blown wings remains to be seen."

Other scientists aren't convinced. Paleontologist Kevin Padian of the University of California, Berkeley, told Science magazine that the authors don't provide evidence that the feathers contributed to any sort of flight. In fact, the feathers would create drag that would hinder flight, Padian said. The birds may have used their plumes for courtship instead, another scientist suggested.

More studies are needed to nail down the feathers' function. Examining more fossils from the thousands in the museum collection will help, the study's authors say. ( LiveScience.com )

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Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found

Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found - Researchers in northeastern Spain say they've uncovered hundreds of dinosaur egg fossils, including four kinds that had never been found before in the region. The eggs likely were left behind by sauropods millions of years ago.

Eggs, eggshell fragments and dozens of clutches were nestled in the stratigraphic layers of the Tremp geological formation at the site of Coll de Nargó in the Spanish province of Lleida, which was a marshy region during the Late Cretaceous Period, the researchers said.

This is an artist's impression of the egg-laying of the sauropod Ampelosaurus.

"Eggshells, eggs and nests were found in abundance and they all belong to dinosaurs, sauropods in particular," the study's leader, Albert García Sellés from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Palaeontology Institute, told Spanish news agency SINC this week.

"Up until now, only one type of dinosaur egg had been documented in the region: Megaloolithus siruguei," Sellés added. His team found evidence of at least four other species: Cairanoolithus roussetensis, Megaloolithus aureliensis, Megaloolithus siruguei and Megaloolithus baghensis. Megaloolithus eggs are thought to be associated with sauropods, long-necked dinosaurs that were among some of the largest to roam the planet.

The Coll de Nargó area is considered one of the most important dinosaur nesting areas in Europe, the researchers said, adding that their study shows it was used by several dinosaurs from the Late Campanian age (around 71 million years ago) to the Late Maastrichtian age (around 67 million years ago).

"We had never found so many nests in the one area before. In addition, the presence of various oospecies (eggs species) at the same level suggests that different types of dinosaurs shared the same nesting area," Sellés said, adding that the dinosaur eggs could help scientists determine the date of future findings at the site.

"It has come to light that the different types of eggs are located at very specific time intervals," Sellés explained to SINC. "This allows us to create biochronological scales with a precise dating capacity. In short, thanks to the collection of oospecies found in Coll de Nargó we have been able to determine the age of the site at between 71 and 67 million years." ( LiveScience.com )

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Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found

Hundreds of Dinosaur Egg Fossils Found - Researchers in northeastern Spain say they've uncovered hundreds of dinosaur egg fossils, including four kinds that had never been found before in the region. The eggs likely were left behind by sauropods millions of years ago.

Eggs, eggshell fragments and dozens of clutches were nestled in the stratigraphic layers of the Tremp geological formation at the site of Coll de Nargó in the Spanish province of Lleida, which was a marshy region during the Late Cretaceous Period, the researchers said.

"Eggshells, eggs and nests were found in abundance and they all belong to dinosaurs, sauropods in particular," the study's leader, Albert García Sellés from the Miquel Crusafont Catalan Palaeontology Institute, told Spanish news agency SINC this week.

"Up until now, only one type of dinosaur egg had been documented in the region: Megaloolithus siruguei," Sellés added. His team found evidence of at least four other species: Cairanoolithus roussetensis, Megaloolithus aureliensis, Megaloolithus siruguei and Megaloolithus baghensis. Megaloolithus eggs are thought to be associated with sauropods, long-necked dinosaurs that were among some of the largest to roam the planet.

The Coll de Nargó area is considered one of the most important dinosaur nesting areas in Europe, the researchers said, adding that their study shows it was used by several dinosaurs from the Late Campanian age (around 71 million years ago) to the Late Maastrichtian age (around 67 million years ago).

"We had never found so many nests in the one area before. In addition, the presence of various oospecies (eggs species) at the same level suggests that different types of dinosaurs shared the same nesting area," Sellés said, adding that the dinosaur eggs could help scientists determine the date of future findings at the site.

"It has come to light that the different types of eggs are located at very specific time intervals," Sellés explained to SINC. "This allows us to create biochronological scales with a precise dating capacity. In short, thanks to the collection of oospecies found in Coll de Nargó we have been able to determine the age of the site at between 71 and 67 million years." ( LiveScience.com )

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Creationists say this petroglyph in Utah is proof dinosaurs and humans co-existed. But is it just a mud stain?

Creationists say this petroglyph in Utah is proof dinosaurs and humans co-existed. But is it just a mud stain? - It certainly looks like a dinosaur. Then again, it also looks like a mud stain.

Either way, this apparent ancient cave drawing high on a rock formation in Utah has ignited a firestorm.

Creationists are claiming the famous dinosaur petroglyph at the Kachina Bridge formation in Natural Bridges Natural Monument in south-eastern Utah is proof that dinosaurs and humans co-existed.

Now you see it... A lighter patch of this rock at the Kachina Bridge formation in Utah appears to form the image of a dinosaur - but is it?

Above left: What appears to be the head and neck of the dinosaur. Above right: What is apparently the body and legs of the dinosaur - but a new paper argues that the image is merely a petroglyph of a snake, with mud stains that confuse the eye into thinking it is seeing legs

The image looks very much like a hand-drawn, plant-eating dinosaur - a diplodocus, perhaps.

But scientists say that is impossible.

Now a new research paper is stirring up the controversy with the claim that the petroglyph is in fact a drawing of a snake. The 'legs' of the dinosaur are nothing more than mud stains, according to the paper published in Palaeontologia Electronica.

The paper was co-authored by biology professor Phil Senter, at Fayetteville State University.

Had Native Americans seen one of these? A sauropod, which is similar in shape to the dinosaur-like image in Utah

He hiked the region with his fianceé in 2009 - and when he came upon the famous image, he said, 'I couldn't believe it.

'It looked just like a sauropod,' he told Discovery News.

Curious, he contacted archaeologist Sally Cole, considered an expert in petrogylphs, which are common throughout parts of Colorado, Utah and New Mexico.

The images are usually found on cave walls or rock faces, drawn several thousand years ago by Native Americans.

Usually they depict deer and other animals. The one at Kachina Bridge was different - as are a few others scattered around the area.

Cole examined the drawing and came to the conclusion that it was actually a composite of two separate drawings.

One is a snake or a serpent. The 'legs' of the 'dinosaur', she said, were actually just stains from minerals or mud.

The result, the paper claimed, was a kind of 'paraeidolia, the psychological phenomenon of perceiving significance in vague or random stimuli, e.g., seeing animals in clouds or the face of a religious figure in a food item.'

Officials at the Creationist Museum, one of several creationist organisations featuring the petroglyph, quickly criticised the report and Cole.

David Menton, a biologist at the museum, told Discovery News that Cole's findings had to be disregarded as she examined the petroglyph from a distance with binoculars - not close up.

He said he was prepared to accept it was a dinosaur - or even some other creature. But, he was quoted as saying, 'I'm not prepared to accept... that the artist climbed up there but the authors didn't climb up.'

The Kachina Bridge formation in south-eastern Utah, where there are many petroglyphs

Cole's paper claimed the area was too rugged for a ladder.

Menton said the image looked like a sauropod and rejected the theory that it has no meaning at all. He said he wished Senter and Cole had provided other possibilities for what the drawing might be.

Several other drawings at Kachina Bridge appear to be of dinosaurs also, including one apparently of a triceratops and another of a monoclonius.

But Senter and Cole claimed in their paper that those images, also, are either composites or do not resemble any four-legged animal they can identify. ( dailymail.co.uk )

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