Flight is a rare skill in the animal world. Among vertebrates, it evolved only three times: in bats, birds, and the ...

Modern birds evolved from ground-dwelling reptiles as their increasingly refined parenting skills led them into the trees, where they could better protect their young, proposes a researcher at the ...

Most birds lack physical weapons because flight demands light bodies, agility and energy efficiency. Displays and behaviour replace brute force for survival and competition.

A dinosaur-like fossil discovered in China is providing paleontologists with clues about the evolution of birds. The unusual bird named Fujianvenator prodigiosus was found in China's Fujian province ...

Evolutionary biologists at Johns Hopkins Medicine report they have combined PET scans of modern pigeons along with studies of dinosaur fossils to help answer an enduring question in biology: How did ...

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, ...

New research has found that, unlike birds, the evolution of bats' wings and legs is tightly coupled, which may have prevented them from filling as many ecological niches as birds. New Cornell ...