{"id":17594,"date":"2026-10-13T08:07:39","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:07:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/dinosaurier-vogel\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T08:53:04","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T06:53:04","slug":"dinosaurier-vogel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/dinosaurier-vogel\/","title":{"rendered":"How Dinosaurs Developed Bird-Like Heads"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The transition from dinosaurs to birds is one of the most impressive evolutionary changes in Earth\u2019s history. Paleontologists are now refuting a long-held hypothesis: changes in the structure of the vestibular system in the inner ear at the origin of birds were not a direct adaptation to avian flight. Rather, the fundamental restructuring of the skull led to the changes in the inner ear. An international team of paleontologists has now published the results of the study in the journal PNAS.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the evolutionary path from dinosaurs to modern birds, it wasn\u2019t just feathers, wings, and eventually active flight that emerged. The skull, brain, and sensory organs also underwent fundamental restructuring. Particularly striking is the change in the shape of the vestibular system in the inner ear. Until now, this was often interpreted as an adaptation of sensory function to the specific demands of balance, spatial orientation, and visual stabilization associated with active flight. An international research team led by paleontologist Guillermo Naval\u00f3n of the University of Alcal\u00e1 in Spain has reached a different conclusion: the new mode of locomotion was apparently not the decisive factor behind this transformation in the inner ear. Rather, the fundamental restructuring of the skull\u2014particularly in the area of the craniocervical joint\u2014is responsible for the shape change of the semicircular canals of the inner ear in birds. Serjoscha Evers, palaeontologist at the Bavarian State Collections of Natural History (SNSB), also participated in the study.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evers and his colleagues compared the inner ear and skull anatomy of dinosaurs, early birds such as Archaeopteryx<\/em>, and pterosaurs with that of living and recently extinct birds, including flightless species such as penguins and kiwis. They analyzed the semicircular canals of the inner ear. These fluid-filled tubes detect rotational movements of the head and are thus an important part of the sense of balance. Their bony structure can also be reconstructed in three dimensions in fossilized animals using high-resolution computed tomography.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result was surprisingly clear: whether a bird can fly or not is only poorly explained by the shape of its semicircular canals. Even the repeated and complete loss of flight ability across different avian lineages left no consistent imprint on their shape. In contrast, the researchers found a much stronger correlation with the architecture of the skull. The reorganization of the head during the dinosaur-to-bird transition is particularly evident in the occiput: In birds, the connection between the skull and the spine increasingly shifted to the underside of the skull. With this realignment, the surrounding skull bones also changed\u2014and with them, the shape of the inner ear. The characteristic \u201cbird-like\u201d inner ear thus does not appear to be an isolated innovation of the sense of balance, but rather part of a more comprehensive restructuring of the head-neck system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe tend to interpret striking changes in a sensory organ immediately as a functional adaptation,\u201d says SNSB paleontologist Serjoscha Evers, co-author of the study. \u201cHowever, the inner ear is not isolated within the skull. When the entire architecture of the head changes, this can also influence the shape of a sensory organ\u2014without this change necessarily being a direct adaptation to a new way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publication:<\/strong>
G. Naval\u00f3n, S.W. Evers, E. Hughes, A. Bjarnason, L.M. Chiappe, S.A. Walsh, J.M. Neenan, E. Panciroli, D.J. Field, & R.B.J. Benson, Coordinated transformations of the labyrinth and occiput during the dinosaur\u2013bird transition, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (42) e2612503123, https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.2612503123<\/a> (2026).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientific Contact:<\/strong>
Dr. Serjoscha Evers
SNSB \u2013 Urwelt-Museum Oberfranken
Tel.: 049 155 6390 1064, E-Mail: evers@snsb.de<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"Archaeopteryx<\/a>
The primitive bird Archaeopteryx<\/em>\u2014here the Eichst\u00e4tt specimen\u2014embodies the transition from dinosaurs to birds like no other fossil. The inner ear of Archaeopteryx<\/em> is also part of the dataset for the new study. (Image: Klenk, Jura Museum Eichst\u00e4tt)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Grafik<\/a>
\u00a0Morphological differences in the inner ears of birds, dinosaurs, and pterosaurs: Each point represents a species; greater distances indicate greater morphological differences. The dot symbols indicate flight capability, while the color shading indicates the orientation of the occiput relative to the neck. The colored spheres on the axes show mathematically abstracted forms of the semicircular canals. (from Naval\u00f3n, G. et al., 2026, used under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The transition from dinosaurs to birds is one of the most impressive evolutionary changes in Earth\u2019s history. Paleontologists are now refuting a long-held hypothesis: changes in the structure of the vestibular system in the inner ear at the origin of birds were not a direct adaptation to avian flight. Rather, the fundamental restructuring of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":17588,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17594"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17597,"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17594\/revisions\/17597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/snsb.de\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}