{"id":555568,"date":"2026-07-18T05:24:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:24:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555568\/"},"modified":"2026-07-18T05:24:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-18T05:24:10","slug":"chinese-fossil-find-shows-birds-shed-their-dinosaur-tails-step-by-step","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/555568\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese fossil find shows birds shed their dinosaur tails step by step"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fossil found in China suggests modern birds shed the long, bony tails of their dinosaur ancestors<\/a> through a step-by-step process, rather than a sudden evolutionary transition as previously believed.The transition to a short, feathered tail<\/a> was one of the most important steps in the evolution and survival of birds, the only living group of dinosaurs to survive a mass extinction event 66 million years ago.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe evolutionary assembly of the flight-adapted bird body plan encompasses some of the most profound morphological changes in terrestrial vertebrate history,\u201d a team of Chinese researchers said in their paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Science Advances on July 1.<\/p>\n

Unlike most non-avian dinosaurs, modern birds have a pygostyle, which is a skeletal structure formed by the fusion of the final few caudal or tail vertebrae. This short tail structure acts as an anchor for tail feathers and muscles.<\/p>\n

\u201cA short pygostyle-bearing tail is functionally and ecologically vital to living birds, which enables tail fanning and conveys aerodynamic advantages,\u201d said the team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS)<\/a> and the Fujian Province Geological Science Research Institute.<\/p>\n

But studying the transformation to this more aerodynamically favourable structure has been difficult, due to the \u201cexceeding rarity\u201d of early-diverging birds and birdlike dinosaurs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fossil found in China suggests modern birds shed the long, bony tails of their dinosaur ancestors through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":555569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[136551,234937,114,47547,1384,35939,234938,61,60,51441,82,9264,234939,234936,228651,228652,228653],"class_list":["post-555568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-archaeopteryx","tag-cas-institute-of-vertebrate-palaeontology-and-paleoanthropology","tag-china","tag-china-science-daily","tag-chinese-academy-of-sciences","tag-fujian-province","tag-fujian-province-geological-science-research-institute","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jurassic","tag-science","tag-science-advances","tag-wang-min","tag-zhenghe-county","tag-zhenghe-fauna","tag-zhengheornis","tag-zhengheornis-buyu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/555569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}