University of Kansas Paleontologist David Burnham has discovered, what he believes, is the origin of flight. The evolutionary concept, which is about whether creatures flew and then went to land, or vice versa, has long plagued the science community, but the discovery of a four-winged creature seems to have solved the mystery.
“Current science believed that flight evolved from the ground up from terrestrial dinosaurs,” Burnham said. “This research shows that flight evolved from the trees down.”
Evolution occurs when a change in environment requires a creature to take on another form and happens over thousands, and sometimes even millions, of years. This was a case for these creatures, who are microraptors, which means they existed approximately 100 million years ago.
“My researcher and [research partner Larry Martin’s] says that they are birds themselves,” Burnham said. “It expands the definition of birds and places the origin of birds further back in time.”
Burnham said that he hopes people will look more carefully at research before jumping to conclusions about the classification of newly discovered creatures. He also explained how it was impossible to believe that creatures came from the ground up.
“Hopefully it will make people think more about how they classify dinosaurs and birds,” he said. “They are two distinct groups. How flight originated should be from the trees down. From the mid-1970’s people have been trying to create complicated theories from the ground up. It is physically impossible, according to Newtonian physics. The wings on their legs slows them down more.”
Burnham and Martin traveled to Germany, France and China to collect data and investigate fossils found in the area. Martin had a history with researchers in China and focuses his studies on birds from the age of dinosaurs.
“I was one of the four researchers that described Confusciusornis and helped make China the center of early bird research,” Martin said. “I have long term research programs with Chinese colleagues and I have asked Dave to join me on several projects, including our work on Microraptor.”
Burnham defended his dissertation on April 17 at KU and he and his team, partially made up of students, are in the process of perfecting a model of the creature to test and display in the Natural History Museum.
“We take the bones they’ve sculpted and pour the plastic into molds,” said Kenneth Bader, Geology graduate student. “We leave them inside for a couple of minutes. Each creature takes somewhere around a month to a month and a half to make.”
Next month PBS program NOVA will come to KU to interview and film the Burnham, Martin and other involved with the project for an episode of the show. The team is working against time not only to have the models finished in time for the shoot, but also because the American Museum is also developing a theory.
