Tracing the evolution of bird reproduction
Wednesday, August 10, 2016 - 17:21
in Paleontology & Archaeology
Birds' reproductive strategies have gone through a series of stages, from dinosaurs to today. What really did come first--the chicken or the egg? Birds' reproductive biology is dramatically different from that of any other living vertebrates, and ornithologists and paleontologists have long wondered how and when the unique features of bird reproduction originated. A new Review in The Auk: Ornithological Advances examines answers from three sources--modern birds, fossils of primitive birds, and fossils of the dinosaurs from which birds are descended--to shed new light on the subject.