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Dinosaur Brains Flight-Ready Long Before They Took To the Air
An anonymous reader writes "Dinosaurs evolved the brain power for flight long before they took to the air, new evidence presented in the journal Nature suggests. Contrary to the cliche, a 'bird brain' describes a relatively enlarged brain with the capacity required for flight. However, based on high-resolution X-ray computed tomographic (CT) scans, researchers found that at least a few non-avian dinosaurs had brains as large or larger than Archaeopteryx, one of the earliest known birds, indicating that some dinosaurs already suspected of flight capability would have had the neurological tools to do so."
Does the article discuss (or does anybody more familiar with today's dinosaurs, not the ones that they thought existed back when I was a kid, most of which seem to have been revised or eliminated, know) if the 'flight-capable' cranial capacities occurred in dinosaurs that, while not capable of flying, had enough pseudo-wing structure available that assorted flight-like stabilization and assisted locomotion strategies would be available, or is the conclusion that correlation between inferred brain structure and flight capabilities is surprisingly weak?
i bet hunting other animals to kill and eat them requires bigger brains than simply standing around and eating grass or leaves. i mean not like the vegesaurians want to be killed and eaten
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The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits. - Albert Einstein
Hummingbird brains are tiny yet they're probably the best acrobatic flyers the bird world has. Geese have much larger brains but they're as dumb as hell compared to the highly intelligent crow family.
The brains allowed them to stand in long lines waiting for their genitals to be groped, and then subject to horrible service and food?
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It's probably brain to body size.
The Neanderthals had bigger brains than us (and so does elephants), but our brains are larger compared to our bodies.
researchers found that at least a few non-avian dinosaurs had brains as large or larger than Archaeopteryx, one of the earliest known birds, indicating that some dinosaurs already suspected of flight capability would have had the neurological tools to do so.
So if something has a brain bigger than something that we know can fly, it could probably learn to fly too if you stuck wings on it? T. Rex brains were larger than humans', but I wouldn't fancy one's chances at beating me at Streetfighter II.
In the interests of balance and reason, I should say that I'm going to assume we're missing out on some key facts thanks to some dumbed-down reporting, not because the researchers aren't doing proper science.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
Duh!
Umm... yes? I bet that things that fly need to be capible of flight before they can fly. Is this an article to weed out the illogical among us or something?
I seem to remember being taught there weren't any flying dinosaurs.
Pterodactyl, Pteranodon, etc, weren't dinosaurs, they were reptiles.
Never studied it intensely, so it could be a matter of details though.
- Don't do what I do, it's probably not healthy nor safe. -
And yes, the Archaeopteryx is not a bird, but an extremely close relative to the first bird. The paraves include the aviales, which are "the birds".
A lot of science is like that. The most tenuous of threads.
Just look at crows. Pound for pound they're some of the smartest and most capable animals around. Total grey matter is nice... but having light, efficient cognitive processes is critical for staying in the air on a tight weight budget.
This article does seem like it counter evolution the way it was stated.
What was more accurate was the brains were doing something else that would allow for an easy migration to flight.
Such as our thumb, our ancient Monkey like relieves had thumbs, like us, however they didn't use tools, they used them to help with climbing. As we evolved further we found the tools that we had for climbing came in rather handy for tools too.
Evolution has a lot of random elements, and it isn't survival of the fittest per say but survival of the luckiest... However the one who were lucky to be more fit then the other would tend to have an advantage... However not always, sometimes something silly as having a brighter color or a lump in the right spot, did more to attract mates then giving them a normal survival advantage, in some cases due to its random nature becomes more of a problem to normal survival... However it was good enough to get to the next generation.
The Intelligent Design folks state on how perfect the human body is... However we are not perfect by any means. Child Birth complication as a trade-off to being able to walk upright, or our noes when it is stuffed hinders breathing! We are prone to a bunch of aliments. But what we had was good enough to pass onto the next generation. In many ways Trees are more "evolved" then we are, they can survive much more then we can.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Does the article discuss (or does anybody more familiar with today's dinosaurs, not the ones that they thought existed back when I was a kid, most of which seem to have been revised or eliminated, know) if the 'flight-capable' cranial capacities occurred in dinosaurs that, while not capable of flying, had enough pseudo-wing structure available that assorted flight-like stabilization and assisted locomotion strategies would be available, or is the conclusion that correlation between inferred brain structure and flight capabilities is surprisingly weak?
Surprisingly weak is my guess. (This seems generally true of so many theories pushed into the mainstream press these days). Phrenology revisited.
Flight may well have been preceded by centuries of hopping around in tree tops or cliff sides, and gliding down (like "flying" squirrels) thereby selecting for those capable of developing mental models of 3D space, and processing not necessary for ground animals. That life style would also favor those animals with lighter bodies, flattened tails and grasping claws.
The theory, as characterized in the summary, suggests by analogy that humans were already specialized for typing long before inventing the typewriter. Clearly they didn't mean that, (one hopes), but they without access to the paywall, its hard to know which animals were selected for analysis.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
The MSNBC journalist is reading way, way too much from the Nature paper. All the latter (and its cited sources) say is that a large brain is thought to be a prerequisite for flight, and that the overall brain morphology found in birds is also found in dinosaurs. The journalist implicitly assumes that this brain morphology has evolved for flight, but this is not a given. Bats have a different brain morphology (though there are some similarities) and are quite nimble fliers. Also, feathers are useful for flight (though bats don't have them), but they're also great for keeping warm (anyone ever tried a feather comforter?), and non-flying dinosaurs had them possibly for that purpose. I'm chalking the present finding in the same column as the feathers: turns out having a large brain with strong and fast spatial visualization ability is useful for other things than flying (who'd have thought, right?), and that avians simply inherited this trait from dinosaurs along with their brain morphology (and undoubtedly fine-tuned it). If anything, the present research adds to the (bat-brain) evidence saying that the overall brain morphology found in birds didn't specifically evolve for the purpose of flight.
Exactly what I was thinking. Is a flying squirrel similarly adapted today?
Or is this supposedly flight enhanced brain just the ability to visualize and process one's movements in a 3d space significantly larger than one's own body size?
If so, it might be nothing more than the ability to conceive/visualize converging trajectories beyond the immediate reach of teeth and claws. Typical predator pursuit behavior, in other words.