London, April 07: Palaeontologists have claimed
that dinosaurs may have evolved wings to woo the opposite sex,
a theory which puts an end to the decades-long debate on the
evolution of flight by the ancestors of modern avians.
While some researches suggested that dinosaurs learned
to fly by jumping out of trees and gliding to ground, others
hinted these "proto-birds" flapped their forelimbs like wings
to give them more thrust to help them climb while attempting
to escape from predators.
Now, a new study has revealed that a procesdins, known
as sexual selection, where traits deemed as attractive by the
opposite sex become more common and more pronounced through
generations as they're favoured by mating animals, is actually
responsible for the evolution of flight by dinosaurs.
Lead palaeontologist Dr Robert Nudds of the University
of Manchester said: "The problem we see is why an animal would
start holding its forelimbs out to the side in a symmetrical
manner in the first place.
"Two-legged animals use their forelimbs
in asymmetrical movements to help counteract the force from
the legs and to stop their body from rotating as they run. If
an animal started running with its limbs held out to the side,
then there would be cost that would've left them competitively
at a disadvantage.
"There must have been another factor involved to allow
this trait to continue through the generations. One theory is
that these feathered dinosaurs used their forelimbs in some
sort of sexual display, so may be they ran around with their
arms outstretched to show off how pretty their feathers were."
Bureau Report
First Published: Tuesday, April 07, 2009, 00:00