The Rise and Fall of the Dinosaurs: A New History of a Lost World: The Definitive Dinosaur Encyclopedia with Stunning Illustrations, Embark on a Prehistoric Quest!

by Steve Brusatte

The more fossils we find—particularly in Liaoning—the more complex the story gets. The early development of flight appears to have been chaotic. There was no orderly progression, no long evolutionary march in which one subgroup of dinosaurs was refined into ever better aeronauts. Instead, evolution had produced a general type of dinosaur—small, feathered, winged, fast-growing, efficient-breathing—that had all of the attributes needed to start playing around in the air. There seems to have been a zone on the dinosaur family tree where this type of animal had free reign to experiment. Flight probably evolved many times in parallel, as different species of these dinosaurs—with their different airfoil and feather arrangements—found themselves generating lift from their wings as they leaped from the ground, scurried up trees, or jumped between branches.