A team of international palaeontologists have built a picture of the lifestyles of early birds and feathered dinosaurs based on exceptional fossils found largely in China.
The research team, which included Dr Phil Bell and PhD candidate Nathan Enriquez from the University of New England (UNE) examined more than one thousand fossils of early birds and their close flying relatives to reveal a handful of exquisite fossils that preserve details of the skin and scales on the feet. In living birds, the shape of the toe pads and foot scales, foot joints, claw shape and size all inform the grasping ability, running proficiency and feeding style. The team combined details of fossil soft tissues, claws and joints, and compared them with modern birds to determine how a range of extinct birds and dinosaurs lived and hunted.
"Because birds evolved from running dinosaurs, we might expect that the earliest flying forms were not particularly capable of hunting on the wing," said Dr Bell. "But that turns out to be only partly true."
The oldest flying birds like Anchiornis and Archaeopteryx from the Jurassic period show adaptations suggestive of relatively ground-dwelling lifestyles. Birds then diversified into more aerial lifestyles in the Early Cretaceous, evidenced from generalists like Confuciusornis and specialists like the climbing Fortunguavis.
