Secrets of bird flight revealed
Scientists believe they could be a step closer to solving the mystery of how the first birds took to the air.
A study published in the journal Nature suggests that the key to understanding the evolution of bird flight is the angle at which a bird flaps its wings.
The US team found that birds move their wings at the same narrow angle, whether they run, fly or glide.
They conclude that early birds may have begun to fly by simply learning to flutter their wings at the right angle.
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Ken Dial |
That simple wing stroke seems to be elementary to bird evolution and bird ecology to get through the fledgling stage 
The research was carried out by scientists at the Flight Laboratory at the University of Montana.
Professor Ken Dial, lead author of the paper, said: “There has been a fair amount of interest in the origin of birds and bird flight for at least a century-and-a-half, but I think sadly it has been approached from an awkward beginning.”
Scientists investigating this area tend to fall into two camps, he said. Those who believe that birds learned to fly from the “top down” - by falling out of trees and gliding, and those who think that birds took to the air from the “ground up” - by running and flapping their wings, possibly to escape predators.
However, both of these scenarios suggest that birds would first need to establish a wide range of wing movement in order to become airborne.
Etiketler: Secrets of bird flight revealed