BIOLOGY 192B Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Sinosauropteryx, Air Sacs, Sciurumimus
Document Summary
In his presentation, the post doc brandon hedrick talked about the evolution of flight. Birds are a recent development in the history of the world and their ancestors can be traced all the way back to the dinosaurs. The first bird is a dinosaur called archaeopteryx. These differed from birds of today because they had long reptilian tails and teeth. Modern birds can be linked back to them because both have feathers, furcula, backwards facing pelvis , and flight. Modern birds have developed their own distinct characteristics such as a keeled sternum, pygostyle, and beaks. This link was originally discovered by a man named thomas henry huxley in 1868. The next discovery was found by john ostrum. This was an early bird discovered in 1984 which was the first of the feathered dinosaurs. For the evolution of birds a number of changes had to happen in dinosaurs.
