Researchers found that bat-like dinosaurs would have been clumsy gliders and probably went extinct because they couldn’t compete with the keen flying abilities of birds and early mammalian gliders.
About 160 million years ago, two tiny dinosaurs known as Yi qi and Ambopteryx longibrachium glided through the trees in present-day China. Unfortunately for Yi and Ambopteryx, these aerial abilities were pretty underwhelming, scientists. The researchers examined soft tissues preserved in a fossil specimen of Yi and used mathematical models to simulate how both dinosaurs would have glided.
Yi and Ambopteryx were probably about the size of a large pigeon or small crow. Their bodies were covered in downy, fluffy feathers and their wings were built with batlike membranes of skin. To understand the little creatures’ gliding capabilities, Dececchi’s team scanned a fossilized Yi specimen using a technique called laser-stimulated fluorescence. This allowed the researchers to capture detailed information about their claws and wings.
It turned out that Yi and Ambopteryx couldn’t have taken off from the ground or flapped their wings very easily like most birds and bats can. The dinosaurs could glide between gaps in the canopy, but their wings wouldn’t have been very maneuverable. They also were carrying more bulk relative to their wing area than present-day gliders like flying squirrels, which meant the dinosaurs would need to glide faster to generate enough lift to keep themselves aloft.
All in all, these dinosaurs had very inefficient wings, he says. They likely couldn’t outfly aerial predators such as pterosaurs, which were a much more accomplished group of flying reptiles. What’s more, their legs weren’t really built for running. On the ground, the dinosaurs would’ve been slow and awkward and easily picked off by predators.
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