Tens of millions of years of gradual evolution turned a family of dinosaurs called theropods into modern birds, new research by the University of Edinburgh has confirmed.
Led by Dr Steve Brusatte, the research highlights how the largest terrestrial carnivore took to the skies, acquiring feathers, wings and wishbones along the way.
The findings were published in Current Biology with the title "Gradual Assembly of Avian Body Plan Culminated in Rapid Rates of Evolution across the Dinosaur-Bird Transition".
Dr Brusatte told The Telegraph:
"What we think of as the classic bird skeleton was pieced together gradually over tens of millions of years.
"Once it came together fully, it unlocked great evolutionary potential that allowed birds to evolve at a super-charged rate."
What is important here is that there was no 'missing link', no intermediary, between dinosaurs and birds. This means that it is scientifically correct to refer to birds as avian dinosaurs. Dinosaurs began developing birdlike features until the first distinctly bird-like dinosaurs evolved around 150 million years ago.
You can read the original research paper here.
