Dino-bird Archaeopteryx could fly:
It may not have been a champion aviator, but the famous dino-bird Archaeopteryx was fully capable of flying despite key skeletal differences from its modern cousins, though not exactly gracefully, according to a new study. Think Wright Brothers, not F-22 fighter jet.
Scientists said on Tuesday they examined Archaeopteryx's wing architecture using state-of-the-art scanning and compared it to a range of birds, closely related dinosaurs and the extinct flying reptiles called pterosaurs. They concluded it could fly in bursts over relatively short distances like pheasants, peacocks and roadrunners.
Birds evolved in the Jurassic Period from small feathered dinosaurs, and represent the only dinosaur group to have survived the mass extinction event 66 million years ago.
Crow-sized Archaeopteryx, which lived about 150 million years ago in a tropical archipelago that is now Bavaria, combined primitive dinosaur characteristics with traits seen in modern birds. (RTRS)