Early birds and feathered dinosaurs could take off from the ground

Ancient birds and some nonavian dinosaurs used their wings and powerful legs to launch themselves into the air, a new analysis of 51 winged dinos suggests. Paleontologist Michael Habib of the University of Southern California in Los Angeles reported the findings October 26 at the annual meeting of the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology.

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Traditionally, scientists have thought that early birds scrambled up trees to get an altitude assist. The birds would then start their flight with a jump, like a hang glider diving off a cliff. Over time, descendants of those gliding birds would have evolved larger wings and, eventually, the ability to flap. Flapping “means you can push yourself forward on your own power,” Habib said. That’s how modern birds fly.

But in recent years, several lines of evidence have begun to dismantle the trees-down approach to flight evolution. Birds descended from terrestrial animals, for one, not tree dwellers. Habib’s team wondered whether early birds needed an elevation boost from trees at all — perhaps they could take off directly from the ground.

He and colleagues examined 51 fossil specimens from 37 different winged dinosaur genera that lived from 150 million to 70 million years ago, from the Late Jurassic to Late Cretaceous epochs. The sample included both avian and nonavian dinosaurs.

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Whether the early fliers could sustain flight for long distances is a different ball game, Habib says. “But there’s a big difference between flying a little and not flying at all.”

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