23
January 2003
Palaeontology: Up in the air
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| Cover photo: Xing Xu; artist's reconstruction: Portia Sloan. |
The discovery of the fossil of a tiny feathered dinosaur with flight feathers on its hindlimbs as well as its forelimbs will put the cat amongst the pigeons in palaeontological circles. There is broad acceptance for the hypothesis that birds developed from theropod dinosaurs, but the debate about how the ancestor of the birds first learned to fly remains an area of controversy. The four-winged glider shown on the cover, from Lower Cretaceous strata in China, is once-living proof of the much-hypothesized gliding 'tetrapteryx' stage in bird evolution. Also this week, 'The double helix: 50 years on.'.
Four-winged dinosaurs from China
XING XU, ZHONGHE ZHOU, XIAOLIN WANG, XUEWEN KUANG, FUCHENG ZHANG & XIANGKE DU
Nature 421, 335–340 (2003); doi:10.1038/nature01342
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Palaeontology: Dinosaurs take to the air
RICHARD O. PRUM
Flying birds evolved from a group of bipedal dinosaurs. The latest fossil discoveries from China indicate that the dinosaurian ancestors of birds had four wings — and that these animals glided rather than flapped.
Nature 421, 323–324 (2003); doi:10.1038/421323a
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