The transition from a lumbering, heavy dinosaur body to the flight-adapted bird body plan is one of many fascinating episodes ...

A 150-million-year-old bird fossil, Zhengheornis, reveals the first step in the evolution of the short tails seen in modern ...

An analysis of two theropod dinosaur fossils has shown that they had a type of carpal bone (pisiform) in their wrists—a bone considered important to flight in birds. This discovery by a team of ...

Reconstruction of a Late Triassic landscape (approximately 215 million years ago). A lagerpetid, a close relative of pterosaurs, is perched on a rock, observing pterosaurs flying overhead. Tübingen, ...

Flight is a rare skill in the animal world. Among vertebrates, it evolved only three times: in bats, birds, and the long-extinct pterosaurs. Pterosaurs were the pioneers, taking to the skies more than ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about biodiversity and the hidden quirks of the natural world. Fossil discoveries unlock chapters of our planet’s storied ...

Mesozoic Pompeii -- The evolution of an airframe -- The origin of birds -- Archaeopteryx : an ancient wing -- Protoavis : a precocious Triassic bird -- Basal avialans : the long-tailed birds -- ...

Fossils reveal that prehistoric cicadas’ wings evolved to help them evade hungry predators with feathers and beaks, scientists say. By Jack Tamisiea Today, few critters are as abundant as cicadas.

Palaeontologist Steve Brusatte's The Story of Birds offers an excellent and sometimes startling account of bird evolution, ...

In a study of fossils, a research team led by evolutionary biologist and Johns Hopkins Medicine assistant professor Matteo Fabbri suggests that a group of giant reptiles alive up to 220 million years ...