New Delhi: Researchers have solved the mystery of unusually long strides by a sparrow-sized microraptor, believed to be related to the ancestors of modern birds. The creature has been named based on two-toed fossil footprints from 100 million years ago. The creature, named Dromaeosauriformipes rarus stumped researchers because the tracks were so tiny, and yet so far apart. A team of researchers have now discovered that the microraptor was not just running on land, but was achieving lift by flapping its wings, allowing it to increase speed and travel faster than it could have if it only relied on the strengths of its legs alone.
The discovery also answers the question, ‘what good is half a wing?’, asked by skeptics of evolution. The form of movement is known as flap-running, and falls squarely between running and flying. There is sufficient lift generated to lift the animal off the ground for short bursts. The movement can allow creatures to run up a tree for example, but does not qualify as full-fledged powered flight. The research indicates that the behaviour of flap-running was not restricted to just birds, and sheds light on the origin of flight, or at the very least, movements adjacent to flight.
Settling a long-standing debate
The research brings to an end a long-running debate if pre-avian dinosaurs used their arms to help in movement. The diminutive size of the creature makes it difficult for the remains to survive, but the researchers compared the bones of comparable species to reconstruct the tiny dinosaur. A paper describing the findings has been published in PNAS. Study author Alex Dececchi says, “Our findings suggest that D. rarus would have needed to run at about 10.5 meters per second [23.5 miles per hour] to create the trackway using solely hindlimb power. The relative speed shown by our tracks is higher than any living running animal, including ostriches and cheetahs.”
