The findings, published in PLOS Computational Biology, provide new insights into the origin of avian flight, which has been a point of debate since the 1861 discovery of Archaeopteryx. While a gliding type of flight appears to have matured earlier in evolutionary history, increasing evidence suggests that active flapping flight may have arisen without an intermediate gliding phase.

To examine this key point in evolutionary history, Zhao and his colleagues studied Caudipteryx, the most primitive, non-flying dinosaur known to have had feathered “proto-wings.” This bipedal animal would have weighed around 5 kilograms and ran up to 8 meters per second.

First, the researchers used a mathematical approach called modal effective mass theory to analyze the mechanical effects of running on various parts of Caudipteryx‘s body. These calculations revealed that running speeds between about 2.5 to 5.8 meters per second would have created forced vibrations that caused the dinosaur’s wings to flap.

Real-world experiments provided additional support for these calculations. The scientists built a life-size robot of Caudipteryxthat could run at different speeds, and confirmed that running caused a flapping motion of the wings. They also fitted a young ostrich with artificial wings and found that running indeed caused the wings to flap, with longer and larger wings providing a greater lift force.

“Our work shows that the motion of flapping feathered wings was developed passively and naturally as the dinosaur ran on the ground,” Zhao says. “Although this flapping motion could not lift the dinosaur into the air at that time, the motion of flapping wings may have developed earlier than gliding.”

Zhao says that the next step for this research is to analyze the lift and thrust of Caudipteryx‘s feathered wings during the passive flapping process.

Biophysical vibration of the wings.
(A) Wearable devices to detect the performance of wings. The back bracket was manufactured through 3D printer with ABS plastics. The angular accelerometer sensor, force sensor and SD card were all mounted on the bracket (S3B Fig). The accelerometer sensor on the back and the wings were used to measure the rolling angle of body and wings respectively during locomotion on the ground. A force sensor is embedded between the arm and the body to measure the lift generated by the flapping wings (S3A Fig). (B) Simplified wing mechanism. Every wing has a flexible structure that is jointed with the body via elastic rubber belts, which are used to simulate the function of muscles. (C) Reconstruction of wings of different sizes. The first wing represents the forearm with filament feathers. From the second one to the fourth one, the length of feathers increases gradually. The second one represents the short feather, the third one represent middle feather while the fourth one with the longest feathers represents the largest wing (the realistic wing is the third one in accordance to the fossil).

1. Yaser Saffar Talori, Jing-Shan Zhao, Yun-Fei Liu, Wen-Xiu Lu, Zhi-Heng Li, Jingmai Kathleen O’Connor. Identification of avian flapping motion from non-volant winged dinosaurs based on modal effective mass analysis. PLOS Computational Biology, 2019; 15 (5): e1006846 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pcbi.1006846