Primitive Wings News Today

In a new study, scientists examined hundreds of birds in museum collections and discovered a suite of feather characteristics that all flying birds have in common.

Birds descended from theropod dinosaurs by the Late Jurassic, but our understanding of the earliest evolution of the Avialae, the clade comprising all modern birds but not Deinonychus or Troodon, has been hampered by a limited diversity of fossils from the Jurassic.