Rates of Dinosaur Body Mass Evolution Indicate 170 Million Years of Sustained Ecological Innovation on the Avian Stem Lineage
- R. Benson, N. Campione, D. Evans
- BiologyPLoS Biology
- 1 May 2014
Early dinosaurs showed rapid evolutionary rates, which were sustained on the line leading to birds. Maintenance of evolvability in key lineages might explain the uneven distribution of trait…
A bizarre Jurassic maniraptoran from China with elongate ribbon-like feathers
- Fucheng Zhang, Zhonghe Zhou, Xing（徐星） Xu, Xiaolin Wang, C. Sullivan
- Environmental Science, BiologyNature
- 24 September 2008
This finding shows that a member of the avialan lineage experimented with integumentary ornamentation as early as the Middle to Late Jurassic, and provides further evidence relating to this aspect of the transition from non-avian theropods to birds.
A Jurassic ceratosaur from China helps clarify avian digital homologies
- Xing Xu, James M. Clark, Yu Guo
- Environmental ScienceNature
- 18 June 2009
A new basal Ceratosaur from the Oxfordian stage of the Jurassic period of China is reported, representing the first known Asian ceratosaur and the only known beaked, herbivorous Jurassic theropod, and possesses a strongly reduced manual digit I, documenting a complex pattern of digital reduction within the Theropoda.
A new feathered maniraptoran dinosaur fossil that fills a morphological gap in avian origin
Recent fossil discoveries have substantially reduced the morphological gap between non-avian and avian dinosaurs, yet avians including Archaeopteryx differ from non-avian theropods in their limb…
The Vertebrates of the Jurassic Daohugou Biota of Northeastern China
- C. Sullivan, Yuan-Jyun Wang, D. Hone, Yuanqing Wang, Xing Xu, Fucheng Zhang
- Environmental Science, Geography
- 1 March 2014
The Daohugou Biota and the Jehol Biota are two successive Lagerstätte assemblages that collectively offer a taphonomically consistent window into the Mesozoic life of northeast Asia over a significant span of geologic time.
A bizarre Jurassic maniraptoran theropod with preserved evidence of membranous wings
- Xing（徐星） Xu, Xiaoting Zheng, Yanhong Pan
- BiologyNature
- 7 May 2015
Documentation of the unique forelimbs of Yi greatly increases the morphological disparity known to exist among dinosaurs, and highlights the extraordinary breadth and richness of the evolutionary experimentation that took place close to the origin of birds.
Genomic evidence reveals a radiation of placental mammals uninterrupted by the KPg boundary
- Liang Liu, Jin Zhang, Shaoyuan Wu
- Environmental Science, BiologyProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- 14 August 2017
It is demonstrated that reconciliation between molecular and paleontological estimates of placental divergence times can be achieved using the appropriate clock model and gene partitioning scheme while accounting for the degree to which individual genes violate molecular clock assumptions.
A New Basal Hadrosauroid Dinosaur (Dinosauria: Ornithopoda) with Transitional Features from the Late Cretaceous of Henan Province, China
- Hai Xing, Deyou Wang, Xing Xu
- GeographyPLoS ONE
- 5 June 2014
Zhanghenglong is probably a relatively derived non-hadrosaurid hadrosauroid, based on the inferences made from the morphological comparisons, quantitative evaluation of measurements, and cladistic analysis.
The Permian mammal-like herbivore Diictodon, the oldest known example of sexually dimorphic armament
- C. Sullivan, R. Reisz, Roger M. H. Smith
- Geography, Environmental ScienceProceedings of the Royal Society of London…
- 22 January 2003
This earliest well–documented example of dimorphic armament suggests that sexual dimorphism, and the complex social behaviour that accompanies it, have long been characteristic of the synapsid lineage.
CRANIAL ANATOMY AND TAXONOMY OF THE LATE PERMIAN DICYNODONT DIICTODON
- C. Sullivan, R. Reisz
- Geography, Biology
- 1 March 2005
Reexamination of the cranial anatomy of the abundant Late Permian dicynodont Diictodon confirms suggestions that only one species, D. feliceps, is recognizable, and suggests that tusked and tuskless specimens do indeed represent distinct biological categories, but it seems highly probable that they are divisions within a single species rather than distinct species.
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