For over a century, evolutionary biologists have been stumped by a single question: What good is half a wing? Tackling “Darwin’s dilemma” necessitates exploring the fossil record from Archaeopteryx to feathered dinosaurs. Afterward, a clever experiment was recreated using modern-day dinosaurs—chickens—to demonstrate the surprising advantage of a proto-wing and finally reveal how dinosaurs took to the sky.
- archaeopteryx
- are birds dinosaurs
- be smart
- bird evolution
- charles darwin
- chickens
- Darwin's dilemma
- dinosaur evolution
- dinosaur to bird evolution
- evolution of feathers
- evolution of wings
- exaptation
- feathered dinosaurs
- Ground-Up theory of flight
- how dinosaurs learned to fly
- Ken Dial
- natural selection
- origin of flight
- paleontology
- PBS
- science experiment
- Sinosauropteryx
- theropod dinosaurs
- transitional fossil
- Trees-Down theory of flight
- WAIR
- Walking with Dinosaurs
- what good is half a wing
- Wing-Assisted Incline Running
- youtube
