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Baby raptors could fly?
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29-05-2012 12:40am#1This is not a formally announced study or anything; it's just something I heard from someone, and which has been haunting me ever since. According to him- and a lot of evidence would seem to back it up-, baby dromaeosaurs/raptors would be able to fly, and only become flightless upon reaching adulthood. This would:
1- Help baby raptors fend for themselves in a world populated by other larger predators, including perhaps adult raptors.
2- Allow raptors to fill several ecological niches through their lifetimes, much like it has been suggested for Tyrannosaurus rex
3- Allow baby raptors to spread their species' range better than adults could.
This would mean that some of the juvenile raptor specimens found are probably not different, smaller species, but rather young individuals from other larger species, whether these are known or not. Take Bambiraptor, for example:
Recently suggested to be actually a juvenile Saurornitholestes, and often called the "most bird-like" of raptor dinosaurs. Its forelimbs are quite long and although it lacks a bird-like sternum keel, it has been proven that the keel is not necessary to fly. Pterosaurs have only a very small keel, more like a shallow ridge; so do bats, because their flight muscles are attached differently.
In many sources it is said that scientists "don´t know" if Bambiraptor could fly, which means at least the possibility has been considered.
The same happens with such creatures as Buitreraptor and Unenlagia; the first one is said to have been possibly flighted to some extent, whereas Unenlagia is said to be "too large" to fly, although it does have many flight-related adaptations.
It has also been suggested that Rahonavis, probably the only raptor considered to have been flighted by almost everyone, may actually be the superprecocial young of a larger, yet unknown dromaeosaur.
Nowadays, the most famous superprecocial birds are megapodes, which have very interesting nesting habits to begin with. Most of them bury their eggs; some use mounds of rotting vegetation, like crocodilians, whereas others simply bury the eggs in sand and rely on the sun or even the geothermal heat to incubate them.
(Sauropods were recently said to have done the same; http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notrocketscience/2010/06/29/giant-dinosaurs-used-the-planet-to-warm-their-eggs/).
Once the little megapodes hatch, they are fully capable of fending for themselves; there is no parental care. Their bodies are covered on soft down but their wings are fully feathered and they can fly within days of being born; some species can actually fly as soon as they hatch, and they are, by the way, much better flyers than the adults. Scientists believe it was the chicks of the megapodes, not the adults, which colonized numerous islands, as many can fly long distances non stop, even though the adults rarely take to the air.
So, the question is, were dromaeosaurs similar? Did the baby raptors hatch fully feathered, with strong bones and muscles and ready to fend for themselves?
If so, this may explain why in the Cretaceous there are few fossils of "bird of prey"-analogues not only among birds but among pterosaurs too. If baby and juvenile raptors were able to fly, they were probably filling that niche. It seems also interesting that rhamphorhynchoids, sometimes said to have filled this niche during the Jurassic, seem to become rarer and eventually dissappear from the fossil record at about the same time raptors appear/diversify.
One last thing; I recently read that the bigger raptors got, the more flexible and less rhamphorhynchoid-like their tails were. This seems to me like additional proof that smaller raptors were doing something similar to rhamphorhynchoids whereas the bigger, flightless ones returned to having a more normal tail.
Oh, and it is possible that some oviraptorosaurs may have been the same.
So, what do you think about this idea, which is, I repeat, NOT mine, but seems to make a lot of sense?
Would a Jurassic Park remake perhaps show a baby raptor leaping into the scientists' face a second after hatching, fully flighted and armed? (I don´t think so, I love the movie as it is, but you get my point)7
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Are you trying to make him angry!?!?!??
It's an interesting theory alright. It would be nice to see it get some mainstream coverage so the idea could really... take flight!
Nope. Don't want to ruffle any feather by sticking my beak in things.
I don't really buy into the idea of baby raptors being able to fly and then losing the ability as they approached and reached adulthood. There would simply have to be, for me anyway, far too much change in the animal as it aged for it to have happened.
I can buy into the idea of T Rex having different stages as it grew in terms of build/weight etc., but to go from a animal capable of flight (light boned etc) to an animal with much much denser bones stretches it for me. Also the lack of a sternum keel clinches it for me as although the other examples given do not have as large as keel as modern birds, those examples also have a very different skeletal make up to modern birds and that skeletal make up compensates for the lack of a large sternum keel. The raptors mention on the other hand have a skeletal make up that is similar to modern birds and for them to be capable of flight I think that they would need a similar sternum keel for the flight muscles to attach to. Because without that keel I fail to see how the arms of the raptors could be used as wings as there is nowhere else on their skeletal remains that suggests it could accomodate flight muscles and provide the leverage needed for flight.
If modern birds are looked at, then one thing becomes very clear. Nearly all birds that fly have a sternum keel or a similar anchor point to provide leverage, but all of those that are flightless don't have one. I would suggest that the raptor skeletal remains don't have a sternum keel or leverage point for wing muscles simply because they could not fly at any age.0 -
Not the same thing but, here's a news report about birds seemingly being paedomorphic dinosaurs:
http://www.latimes.com/news/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-birds-dinosaurs-20120529,0,7306734.story?track=rss0 -
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Gliding is a possibility, but they would not be like a Potoo or an owl as those animals are capable of true flight and have anchored flight muscles.
What I meant was more the hunting method (sit and wait, instead of say, soaring like an eagle or a hawk).If a very small (and light) young raptor could indeed glide, then I would imagine it was more a mode of transport/escape whilst in trees etc. I don't think they would be glider hunters because of their tail. The shape and length of the tail would see them without a vital part of what makes up a true flighted bipedal predator. Genuine agility in the air would be an issue, and the tail that they had would be a huge factor in that lack of agility.
Then perhaps a better comparison would be a cracid, like a guan or a chachalaca?
They live in trees, have long rigid tail feathers, and are generally not much of a flyer but they use their limited ability to leap from branch to branch/escape from the ground to a tree or the other way around etc.
The changes to the bone structure I can accept to some degree if the animal went from glider to ground bound as it got older, but the changes needed in the bones to go from being a very light animal capable of true flight to being a heavy ( in compartive terms) ground based predator just seem a bridge too far for me.
Well, never say never... there are plenty of crazy things in nature. I guess we'll have to wait for new discoveries to clear things up.
On a slightly unrelated note, what do you think of the idea that baby pterosaurs were gliders/tree climbers while small, and only became powered flyers later? (I think I posted about it some time ago)0 -
What I meant was more the hunting method (sit and wait, instead of say, soaring like an eagle or a hawk).
Then perhaps a better comparison would be a cracid, like a guan or a chachalaca?
They live in trees, have long rigid tail feathers, and are generally not much of a flyer but they use their limited ability to leap from branch to branch/escape from the ground to a tree or the other way around etc.
Well, never say never... there are plenty of crazy things in nature. I guess we'll have to wait for new discoveries to clear things up.
On a slightly unrelated note, what do you think of the idea that baby pterosaurs were gliders/tree climbers while small, and only became powered flyers later? (I think I posted about it some time ago)
I got what you were saying in terms of them gliding to hunt. I just did not think it was a valid option based on the skeletal make up of most raptors. As said in my earlier post, if they could glide I think it was purely as a means of escape/transport rather than a means to ambush hunt let alone active hunting.
As for the chachalaca. Well the Plain chachalaca would be a good example in terms of how I think a gliding capable young raptor would get about in that the plain chachalaca generally will try to outrun a predator or if in a tree will leap and then glide to another branch/tree. But the flipside is that the chachalaca has a sternum keep and has the main mass of it's muscles lower down on its body which allows true flight, accurate gliding, and powerful running. A raptor with it's bipedal frame and no sternum keel has a sketal structure which is set up to take the largest group of body muscles lower down in it's body to power it's mode of locomotion which based on it's skeletal frame would be a combination of leaping, running, and a fair degree of terrestrial agility.
As for pterosaurs being gliders/tree climbers when young. I think for many types that is very plausible, in fact I think that it was almost a certainty for some types to be honest. I think that the majority of pterosaurs were quadrupeds, and the anchoring of their wing muscles supports this more than any of the tracks that have been found. Most quadrupeds with the capablity to glide have the ability to cling to surfaces and climb surfaces so it is very reasonable to think that up to a certain size/weight that animals with a very similar physical set up would have done likewise in the past as well.
I think that many of the smaller pterosaurs were tree climbers/clingers as adults and if not trees then rock surfaces etc.0 -
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Sorry bout bumping this thread, but I was re-reading it and it occured to me... what are your thoughts on Sharovipteryx, said to be a glider but with its patagium anchored to the hindlegs?
I would see it as a glider that was designed to be very efficient at going in straight lines, but poor in terms of maneuverability.0 -
What bothers me is that its forelimbs are so small... wouldn´t that affect its balance while gliding?
I don´t think there's anything quite like it in modern times; all gliding animals have much more uniform gliding surfaces:
Mind you, I'm not saying that I think Sharovipteryx couldn´t glide, or anything like that- I'm only curious as of how it "worked", so to speak. For some reason I find it difficult to picture in my head. Not only how it glided but also how it landed...0 -
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Mullerornis wrote: »We defenitely need more studies, but the potential for unorthodox flight styles was there.
Hey, you never know
Maybe Epidexipteryx's tail feathers were helicopter rotors...
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Hey, you never know Maybe Epidexipteryx's tail feathers were helicopter rotors...
We do currently know scanciopterygids had wing feathers, so they're in the list of gliding/flying dinosaurs.
In addition, it has been suggested enantiornithes might actually be sister taxa to them rather than Ornithurae.0 -
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