Dinosaur Robot Demonstrates How Birds Learned to Fly

Scientists have long argued that birds are distant descendants of dinosaurs. However, there seems to have been a transitional species between them, which is called Archeopteryx by the scientific community. Archeopteryxes could not fly, but they made their first attempts to do so.

The predator that lived on Earth about 150 million years ago learned to fly by rhythmically flapping its wings. To prove that this was the case, scientists built a life-sized Caudipteryx robot fully replicating the dinosaur’s body structure.

Caudipterix is ​​the world’s oldest feathered dinosaur. It looked like ostriches familiar to us, so when it ran, it probably flapped its wings, thus laying the foundation for the remarkable ability to fly which its descendants developed.

According to the calculations made by the team of scientists led by Jing-Shan Zhao, running at a speed of 2-3 meters per minute caused involuntary flapping of the wings. To confirm their hypothesis, the researchers created a robotized skeleton which you can see in the video using the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=40&v=VlCBkDQCNz8