An international team of scientists describes the remarkable evolutionary process. This evolution took place over a period of 50 million years. The result, carnivorous dinosaur descendants continue to shrink and have a lot of criteria that lead to the initial appearance of birds.
By using molecular techniques, evolutionary biologists reconstruct the virus, 1,500 investigating the anatomical features 120 different dinosaur of the theropod group. Among these giant meat-eaters like Tyrannosaurus rex and Giganotosaurus and pedigree bird.
"Our study measures the rate of evolution of a group of theropod dinosaurs," said lead researcher Michael Lee, a paleontologist at the University of Adelaide and the South Australian Museum.
Birds in the early days there in Germany
"They are the fastest growing group became the ancestors of birds. So, in the end, most adaptable and dinosaurs survived for the long term. They now surround us with the splendor of his feathers," he explained Lee.
Giganotosaurus
Birds in the early days was known Archaeopteryx. Body size of a crow. These birds live in Germany 150 million years ago. They have primitive characteristics such as teeth, a long bony tail, the bone between the neck and chest, had the flight muscles, as well as some of the attributes of modern birds.
Continues to shrink
"What is impressive is the consistency of the change in the size of the transition dinosaurs into birds. Each offspring to be smaller than their ancestors. Genealogical this continues to happen, they evolve into a smaller body size, bit by bit, for more than 50 million years," said Lee . Researchers have completed the dinosaur family tree and ancestry of birds. This dinosaur size decreased from about 200 kg to be 0.8 kg kg.
Giganotosaurus
In addition to ongoing miniaturization, this breed also has new features such as feathers, wings, a short snout and smaller teeth. The study found that this is the result of evolutionary adaptation, where they changed four times faster than other dinosaurs.
"The dinosaurs closely related to all small birds, and many of them - such as Microraptor - has some ability to climb and glide," said one researcher Gareth Dyke, a paleontologist at the University of Southampton, UK.
Change from dinosaurs to birds form a unique body.
"This allows them to catch insects, climb trees, jump and glide, and eventually developed the ability to fly with full force," said Lee. This evolution makes them flexible and able to survive when a meteor hit the earth and destroy habitat of other dinosaurs.
