Also the Archaeopteryx they knew fly: it indicates the discovery, for the first time on a new fossil of this small progenitor dinosaur of the birdsof some special feathers fundamental for the flight e never observed so far. To identify them, thanks to Analysis with ultraviolet lights and computerized tomographic scanswas the research led by Jingmai O’Connor, of the Field Museum of Chicago, and published in the magazine Nature.
Large roughly like a modern crowArchaeopteryx He lived in the Jurassicabout 150 million years agoand for a long time it was considered one key species In the evolutionary passage which led to the birth of the birds. Despite the skeletal structure and the rather large wings So far there was no certainty that this small dinosaur was, however, really able to fly because to be able to obtain the necessary push from the air, the so -called lift, it is also necessary to have some specific featherscalled tertiarywhich are typically located between wings and body, provide a sort of continuous connection to the stack of the wings.
The new fossil had been Discovered in 1990 and acquired by the Field Museum only in 2022 that after a long work of preparation of the fossil he submitted him to careful analysis with CT and UV rays from which they are details never observed so far in other fossil specimens. The most relevant discovery was that of the tertiary feathers: “These pens fill the space between the body and the wings, avoiding the dispersion of the lift during the flight”, explained O’Connor. “This detail – he added – was missing in the feathered dinosaurs closely related to the birds, suggesting that the archaeoploweryx was actually able to fly, unlike its non -avian cousins”. The study also analyzed other parts of the body such as the skullalso showing that this specimen of Archaeopteryx also had another characteristic of modern birdsi.e. the ability to Open and close the beak independently of the other cranial bones.
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