ESRF, PASCAL GOETGHELUCKArchaeopteryx, a Jurassic-era dinosaur, definitely flapped its winged feathers and flew—it didn’t just glide, researchers report today (March 13) in Nature Communications.
Vertebrate paleontologist Dennis Voeten of the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility in France and his colleagues used an imaging technique called propagation phase-contrast synchrotron X-ray microtomography to study detailed cross-sections of the humerus and ulna bones of three Archaeopteryx fossils. The analyses revealed bones densely packed with blood vessels and with thickness similar to flying birds, suggesting the dinosaur flew.
“It’s amazing that we finally know something about the internal bone anatomy of this fossil and we can see the inside of their bones. No one would ever allow the bones to be sectioned and this has now been done with virtual imaging,” Gareth Dyke, a paleontologist at Debrecen University in Hungary who was not involved in the study, tells The Guardian. “This is such an ...
