New fossil foot analysis reveals the surprising and varied lifestyles of dinosaur bird ancestors

Have you ever eaten chicken feet? If you haven’t, you might be surprised to learn there’s actually quite a bit of flesh down there. And scales too! They’re wonderful—and informative—pieces of engineering.

As someone whose specialty is working on fossilized dinosaur skin, I have more than a passing interest in bird feet and the scales of other reptiles (yes, birds are reptiles too).

In a paper published today in Nature Communications, we describe how we used some extraordinary fossils to reveal the varied lifestyles in the transition from ground-dwelling dinosaur to flying bird.

Because the carnivorous theropod dinosaurs—a group of bipedal dinosaurs characterized by hollow bones and three-toed feet—eventually evolved into birds, the two groups share a lot of similarities.

So, we can use birds as a model for reconstructing the behavior and lifestyles of extinct dinosaurs.

Multitasking feet

Birds lack “proper” hands, so their feet have to do twice the work—perching, walking, grasping, manipulating food. They’re naturally well adapted to do those jobs. But all bird feet are not created equal, as the jobs differ between species.

Raptorial birds—think the likes of hawks and falcons—often have large, protruding toe pads that act like little fingers to help them grip their prey. Raptorial birds that specialize in catching fish also have spiky scales on the underside of the foot to assist in restraining their slippery catch.

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