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Avifilopluma
Avifilopluma ("bird filoplumes") is a clade containing all animals with feathers. Unlike most clades, which are defined based on relative relationships, Avifilopluma is defined based on an ''apomorphy'', that is, a unique physical characteristic shared by one group and not found outside that group (in this case, feathers). Its content is unclear, and has been speculated to range from Coelurosauria to all of Ornithodira. Definition The clade Avifilopluma was created along with several other apomorphy-based clades relating to birds by Jacques Gauthier and Kevin de Queiroz in a 2001 paper. Their specific definition for the group was "the clade stemming from the first pan-avian with feathers homologous (synapomorphic) with those of '' Aves'' (''Vultur gryphus'' Linnaeus 1758)."Gauthier, J. and de Queiroz, K. (2001). "Feathered dinosaurs, flying dinosaurs, crown dinosaurs, and the name "Aves"". Pp. 7-41 in Gauthier, J. and L.F. Gall (eds.), ''New Perspectives on the Origin and Ear ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aves
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely adapted for flight. Some bird species of aquatic environments, particularly seabirds and some waterbirds, have ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird
Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class (biology), class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the Oviparity, laying of Eggshell, hard-shelled eggs, a high Metabolism, metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight Bird skeleton, skeleton. Birds live worldwide and range in size from the bee hummingbird to the common ostrich. There are over 11,000 living species and they are split into 44 Order (biology), orders. More than half are passerine or "perching" birds. Birds have Bird wing, wings whose development varies according to species; the only known groups without wings are the extinct moa and elephant birds. Wings, which are modified forelimbs, gave birds the ability to fly, although further evolution has led to the Flightless bird, loss of flight in some birds, including ratites, penguins, and diverse endemism, endemic island species. The digestive and respiratory systems of birds are also uniquely a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Avialae
Avialae ("bird wings") is a clade containing the only living dinosaurs, the birds, and their closest relatives. It is usually defined as all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds (Aves) than to Deinonychosauria, deinonychosaurs, though alternative definitions are occasionally used (see below). ''Archaeopteryx lithographica'', from the late Jurassic Period Solnhofen Formation of Germany, is usually considered the earliest known avialan which may have had the capability of powered flight; a minority of studies have suggested that it might have been a deinonychosaur instead. Several older (but non flight-capable) possible avialans are known from the late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of China, dated to about 160 million years ago. Definition Most researchers define Avialae as branch-based clade, though definitions vary. Many authors have used a definition similar to "all theropods closer to birds than to ''Deinonychus''."Weishampel, David B.; Dodson, Peter; Osmólska, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Middle Jurassic
The Middle Jurassic is the second Epoch (geology), epoch of the Jurassic Period (geology), Period. It lasted from about 174.1 to 161.5 million years ago. Fossils of land-dwelling animals, such as dinosaurs, from the Middle Jurassic are relatively rare, but geological formations containing land animal fossils include the Forest Marble Formation in England, the Kilmaluag Formation in Scotland,British Geological Survey. 2011Stratigraphic framework for the Middle Jurassic strata of Great Britain and the adjoining continental shelf: research report RR/11/06 British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham. the Calcaire de Caen of France, the Daohugou Beds in China, the Itat Formation in Russia, the Tiouraren Formation of Niger, and the Isalo III Formation of western Madagascar. Rocks of the Middle Jurassic were formerly (until about 1980s) in Europe called ''Dogger'' or ''Brown Jurassic''. Paleogeography During the Middle Jurassic Epoch, Pangaea began to separate into Laurasia and Gond ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beipiaosaurus
''Beipiaosaurus'' is a genus of Therizinosauroidea, therizinosauroid theropod dinosaurs that lived in China during the Early Cretaceous in the Yixian Formation. The first remains were found in 1996 and formally described in 1999. Before the discovery of ''Yutyrannus'', ''Beipiaosaurus'' were among the heaviest dinosaurs known from direct evidence to be feathered. ''Beipiaosaurus'' is known from three reported specimens. Numerous impressions of feather structures were preserved that allowed researchers to determine the feathering color which turned out to be brownish. They were relatively small-sized therizinosaurs, measuring long and weighing about in contrast to the advanced and giant ''Segnosaurus'' or ''Therizinosaurus''. The necks of ''Beipiaosaurus'' were shorter than in most therizinosaurs, whose are characterized by elongated necks adapted for Browsing (herbivory), high-browsing. Also, their feet configuration differs from therizinosaurids, having a generic three-toed pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feathered Dinosaurs
A feathered dinosaur is any species of dinosaur possessing feathers. That includes all species of birds, and in recent decades evidence has accumulated that many non-avian dinosaur species also possessed feathers in some shape or form. The extent to which feathers or feather-like structures were present in dinosaurs as a whole is a subject of ongoing debate and research. It has been suggested that feathers had originally functioned as thermal insulation, as it remains their function in the down feathers of infant birds prior to their eventual modification in birds into structures that support flight. Since scientific research began on dinosaurs in the early 1800s, they were generally believed to be closely related to modern reptiles such as lizards. The word ''dinosaur'' itself, coined in 1842 by paleontologist Richard Owen, comes from the Greek for 'terrible lizard'. That view began to shift during the so-called dinosaur renaissance in scientific research in the late 1960s; ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bird Flight
Bird flight is the primary mode of animal locomotion, locomotion used by most bird species in which birds take off and flight, fly. Flight assists birds with feeding, Sexual reproduction, breeding, avoiding predation, predators, and Bird migration, migrating. Bird flight includes multiple types of motion, including hovering, taking off, and landing, involving many complex movements. As different bird species adapted over millions of years through evolution for specific environments, prey, predators, and other needs, they developed Generalist and specialist species, specializations in their wing (bird), wings, and acquired different forms of flight. Various theories exist about how bird flight evolution, evolved, including flight from falling or gliding (the ''trees down'' hypothesis), from running or leaping (the ''ground up'' hypothesis), from ''wing-assisted incline running'' or from '' proavis'' (pouncing) behavior. Basic mechanics of bird flight Lift, drag and thrust The f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aviremigia
Maniraptora is a clade of coelurosaurian dinosaurs which includes the birds and the non-avian dinosaurs that were more closely related to them than to '' Ornithomimus velox''. It contains the major subgroups Avialae, Dromaeosauridae, Troodontidae, Oviraptorosauria, and Therizinosauria. '' Ornitholestes'' and the Alvarezsauroidea are also often included. Together with the next closest sister group, the Ornithomimosauria, Maniraptora comprises the more inclusive clade Maniraptoriformes. Maniraptorans first appear in the fossil record during the Jurassic Period (see '' Eshanosaurus''), and survive today as living birds. Description Maniraptorans are characterized by long arms and three-fingered hands (though reduced or fused in some lineages), as well as a "half-moon shaped" ( semi-lunate) bone in the wrist ( carpus). In 2004, Tom Holtz and Halszka Osmólska pointed out six other maniraptoran characteristics relating to specific details of the skeleton. Unlike most other saurisch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pterosaur
Pterosaurs are an extinct clade of flying reptiles in the order Pterosauria. They existed during most of the Mesozoic: from the Late Triassic to the end of the Cretaceous (228 million to 66 million years ago). Pterosaurs are the earliest vertebrates known to have evolved powered flight. Their wings were formed by a membrane of skin, muscle, and other tissues stretching from the ankles to a dramatically lengthened fourth finger. There were two major types of pterosaurs. Basal pterosaurs (also called 'non-pterodactyloid pterosaurs' or ' rhamphorhynchoids') were smaller animals with fully toothed jaws and, typically, long tails. Their wide wing membranes probably included and connected the hind legs. On the ground, they would have had an awkward sprawling posture, but the anatomy of their joints and strong claws would have made them effective climbers, and some may have even lived in trees. Basal pterosaurs were insectivores or predators of small vertebrates. Later pte ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ornithoscelida
Ornithoscelida () is a proposed clade that includes various major groupings of dinosaurs. An order Ornithoscelida was originally proposed by Thomas Henry Huxley but later abandoned in favor of Harry Govier Seeley's division of Dinosauria into Saurischia and Ornithischia. The term was revived in 2017 after a new cladistic analysis by Baron ''et al''. Huxley's concept Thomas Henry Huxley originally defined the term in an 1869 lecture as a group comprising two subgroups: the large and heavy-set Dinosauria and the newly discovered ''Compsognathus'', which he placed in a new grouping Compsognatha. The former were defined by their shorter cervical vertebrae, and the femur length exceeding tibia length, and the latter with longer cervical vertebrae, and the femur length shorter than tibia length. He noted that the characteristics of their bones showed many features akin to birds. The dinosaurs Huxley had divided into three families: * Megalosauridae: '' Teratosaurus'', '' Palae ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kulindadromeus
''Kulindadromeus'' is a genus of basal neornithischian dinosaur that lived during the Middle Jurassic. The first ''Kulindadromeus'' fossil was found in Russia. Its feather-like integument is evidence for protofeathers being basal to Ornithischia and possibly Dinosauria as a whole, rather than just to Coelurosauria, as previously suspected. Discovery and naming In 2014, the type species ''Kulindadromeus zabaikalicus'' was named and described by Pascal Godefroit, Sofia Sinitsa, Danielle Dhouailly, Yuri Bolotsky, Alexander Sizov, Maria McNamara, Michael Benton, and Paul Spagna. The generic name is derived from the Kulinda sites and Classical Greek δρομεύς, ''dromeus'', "runner". The specific name refers to the Zabaykalsky Krai. The holotype, INREC K3/109, was found in a layer of the Ukureyskaya Formation dating from the Middle to Late Jurassic, Bajocian-Tithonian, with the specific bed likely dating to the Bathonian stage of the Middle Jurassic, between 168 and 16 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
