Few subjects in evolutionary theory have posed such intriguing puzzles for so long as the origin of birds. Evidence of avian beginnings has been elusive in the fossil record because birds' light, ...

The bird retina is one of the most energetically expensive tissues in the animal kingdom, yet it doesn’t use the energy ...

A 67-million-year-old fossil has upended scientists’ long-held notions about bird evolution. Most modern birds have a jointed upper jaw that allows the top half of their beak to move. But a select few ...

Shapes of beaks and snouts come in an extraordinary range of forms, reflecting adaptations to different lifestyles and ...

Modern birds evolved earlier than previously assumed — much earlier than the dinosaurs’ mass extinction — an event that seems to have had a limited impact on avian evolution Artist’s depiction of the ...

In 1861, as quarry workers in the Bavarian countryside split limestone into sheets for use in lithographic printing, they happened on a fossil skeleton. It had feathers and wings, so it was clearly a ...

The Fujianvenator had elongated lower legs that were twice as long as its thighs. The 150-million-year-old dinosaur is likely a very early bird ancestor, as old as the Archaeopterix. This suggests ...

An enormous meteor spelled doom for most dinosaurs 65 million years ago. But not all. In the aftermath of the extinction event, birds—technically dinosaurs themselves—flourished. Scientists have spent ...

Everyone knows what a bird is – and pretty much everyone knows what a dinosaur is. But not everyone is aware that birds evolved from dinosaurs approximately 160 million years ago. In fact, birds and ...