Background The origin of birds is one of the most enduring and dramatic evolutionary
debates. The hypothesis that the primarily small-sized birds are nested within a theropod�…

Abstract The Jehol Biota is an Early Cretaceous terrestrial fossil assemblage of paramount
significance, and its core distribution areas are western Liaoning, northern Hebei, and�…

Archaeopteryx is widely accepted as being the most basal bird, and accordingly it is
regarded as central to understanding avialan origins; however, recent discoveries of derived�…

Fossil evidence for changes in dinosaurs near the lineage leading to birds and the origin of
flight has been sparse. A dinosaur from Mongolia represents the basal divergence within�…

How did humans acquire cognitive capacities far more powerful than any hunting-and-
gathering primate needed to survive? Alfred Russel Wallace, co-founder with Darwin of�…

Abstract Fossils from the “Jehol Biota” have been studied for nearly 90 years, and the term
“Jehol Biota” has been extensively used and is well known today, largely thanks to the�…

Testing models of macroevolution, and especially the sufficiency of microevolutionary
processes, requires good collaboration between molecular biologists and paleontologists�…

The most comprehensive account of the origin of ancient and modern birds—the" living
dinosaurs." A small set of fossilized bones discovered almost thirty years ago led�…

Recent discoveries in Asia have greatly increased our understanding of the evolution of
dinosaurs' integumentary structures, revealing a previously unexpected diversity of�…

Pneumatic (air‐filled) postcranial bones are unique to birds among extant tetrapods.
Unambiguous skeletal correlates of postcranial pneumaticity first appeared in the Late�…