Scientists decode how dinosaurs learned to fly

Scientists decode how dinosaurs learned to fly

Scientists decode how dinosaurs learned to fly

Scientists have discovered how feathered dinosaurs took the skies, providing new insight into the evolution of bird flight.

A Full-scale model of the feathery Microrapter a dinosaurs pivotal to the debate of just how these ancient precursors to birds took flight- was placed in wind tunnel,shedding,light on how the gigantic creatures learned to fly.

Scientists from the university of Southampton examined the flight performance of the early cretaceous five winged paravian Microrapter.

The first theropod described with feathers on its arms, legs and tail (five potential lifting surfaces), Microrapter implies that forelimb-dominated bird flight passed through a four wing (tetrapteryx) phase and represents an important stage in the evolution of gliding and flapping.

Researchers performed a series of wind tunnel experiments and flight simulations on a full scale, anatomically accurate model of microrapter.

Results of the team’s wind tunnel tests show that microrapter would have been most stable gliding when generating large amounts of lift with its wing.

Flight simulations demonstrate that this behaviour had advantages since this high lift coefficient allows for slow glides,which can be achieved with less height loss.

For glidding down from low elevations, such as trees, this slow and aerodynamically less efficient flight was the gliding strategy that result in minimal height loss and longest glide distance.

Much debate, centred on the position and orientation of microrapter’s legs and wing shape turns out to be irrelevant- tests show that changes in these variables make little difference to the dinosaur’s flight.