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Scientists Unearth Fossils of 'Missing Link' Flying Reptiles

Researchers believe Darwinopterus is proof of modular evolution

By Rob Quinn| Posted Oct 14, 09 2:04 AM CDT|

(Newser) – Scientists have discovered the remains of a flying reptile in China that they believe represents the "missing link" in a controversial theory of evolution. The reptile—named Darwinopterus in honor of Charles Darwin—lived some 160 million years ago and has features from both early, short-tailed pterodactyls and their huge, long-tailed descendants. "It’s as if someone said, ‘Let’s nail these two together and make a sort of chimera; that’ll really confuse everybody," one scientist said.

Darwinopterus appears to have evolved quickly, scientists say, changing whole series of traits at a time instead of single features in an example of "modular evolution." The fossils provide "hard evidence for that kind of pattern,” one expert told Science News. “The challenge now is to find the genetic mechanism that would allow this to happen."

[Images (1)]

[Quotes (1)]

Darwinopterus was a crow-sized carnivore that existed 160 million years ago. (Lü Junchang/Geological Institute, Beijing)

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

The head and neck evolved first, followed later by the body, tail, wings and legs. It seems that natural selection was changing entire modules and not, as would normally be expected, single features. - British pterosaur expert David Unwin
of Leicester University

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

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26 comments

VIEWING:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 2:56 AM CDT

Just for those who aren't aware, take what you read about science from news sources with a grain of salt. Actually, probably a handful or two of salt. Media is notorious for sensationalizing the FUCK out of science. Remember "Ida" from a few months ago? The most egregious sensationalizing I've ever seen. No exaggeration. Reporters are often as ignorant about science as the guy off the street, and the scientists unveiling a new discovery may themselves be prone to sensationalizing it. By the way, Ida wasn't that big of a deal. We've had dozens of fossils representing almost every missing link we could ever hope to have filled all the way up until Ida. Ida was just one more missing link out of the dozens we already have just in our own lineage, let alone the thousands we have across the tree of life. Now, I'm not sure about this flying reptile, I haven't looked into it, I don't really even care. I'm just pointing out to people who rely on the news to get their scientific information that it's standing on incredibly shaky grounds when you get it from a news source and not a scientific source. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 14, 09 4:27 AM CDT

Oh, come on. You say that without reading the article. We're not a bunch of buffoons, Aelius. From the sciencenews site --------------------------- The “bizarre combination” of old and new traits indicates that Darwinopterus evolved in chunks, Unwin says. The find could lend support to a controversial idea called modular evolution, which says that evolutionary forces can act on whole groups of features — an entire head, for example, rather than just one tooth — at a time. ----------------- This is the reason it's getting the publicity. Now feel free to comment ;-) .......................... And regarding Ida, Man, she is an exquisite fossil. Finding her was like finding a lost Michaelangelo -------------------- http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/70/Darwinius_masillae_PMO_214.214.jpg ---------------------- You are right in that the significance of Ida was lost on the popular press. They barely know more about science than do the Tea Baggers, though . . .

IN RESPONSE:

Rob
Oct 14, 09 5:30 AM CDT

@Greg I was with you all the way up to bringing in politics, as if no scientists were attending tea parties, too. Bringing politics into a discussion about Evolution: strike one. Assuming scientists’ politics: strike two.

-2

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 5:39 AM CDT

Sorry, Rob, but with a few exceptions the vast majority of scientists are too intelligent to be attending the lowest common denominator of the U.S. public. It's an appropriate generalization to make. I mean if you finished 4-8 years of university and for decades have been involved with other intellectuals, you're not going to get involved in "Obama's a nigger; an Indonesian Muslim welfare thug." or "I'm pro-God, pro-life, and pro-gun! Jesus had a gun rack too!". Like a banker selling pencils from a cup on the street, it just... doesn't really happen.

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 14, 09 5:50 AM CDT

Wow. That was a great go-round with all of us adding something. But back to Darwinopterus and modular evolution. Is modular evolution like punctuated equilibria -- but with waves of simultaneous mutations? That just seems so close to Lamarckism . . . Almost as if an individual, or a segment of an entire genetic community, just "turns on" the black box of mutation for a while . . .

-1

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 6:00 AM CDT

shonangreg, you do realize this is Newser, right? We have no idea what you're talking about.

IN RESPONSE:

Rob
Oct 14, 09 6:04 AM CDT

@ aelius You are simply wrong in your assumptions about scientists. The right makes comments about scientists because they are trying to manipulate uneducated people, but the fact is that scientists, like everyone else, cover the entire political spectrum. You shouldn't learn your demographics, or anything else, with sound bites.

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 6:09 AM CDT

Of course they cover the whole spectrum, but just like most rich people are Democrats and most middle-class white Americans are conservative, most scientists are Democrats. When dealing with populations of people in the millions, generalisations are necessary. Unless you're saying "everybody is human" "everybody has two eyes" and "nobody is 4 inches tall" you HAVE to generalise because with groups in the millions you cannot make absolute statements.

IN RESPONSE:

Rob
Oct 14, 09 6:13 AM CDT

@ Greg. Yes I think you're right. It is an example of Punctuated Equilibrium but I don’t see real connections with Lamarckism. Nor do the researchers directly involved since they are looking for genetic mechanisms, something Lamarckism doesn't require. In spite of comments to the contrary made above, transition species (a better term than "missing link") are rare. In specific groups that had special ecologies, like trilobites, we have what amounts to complete evolutionary records including transition species. In other groups like pterosaurs we do not have that luxury. Sometimes when we are lucky we can document rapid evolutionary change with times of environmental flux. The likelihood here is that the conditions the pterosaurs lived in were undergoing rapid change or they were filling a previously empty niche.

IN RESPONSE:

Rob
Oct 14, 09 6:14 AM CDT

@ Aelius Ok then where do YOU get your demographics?

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 6:17 AM CDT

What do you mean? I just said... generalisations, like everybody else does. It's simply impossible to make use of absolute statements when talking about demographics.

IN RESPONSE:

Rob
Oct 14, 09 6:36 AM CDT

So you are making it up. OK.

-2

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 14, 09 6:45 AM CDT

@aelius. What are the proportions of scientists who are Democrats as opposed to Republicans?

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 6:57 AM CDT

@Rob, you're a fucking idiot. If you think there is any possible way to establish tendencies among groups of millions of people without resorting to generalisations, you're just fucking stupid, sorry. @shonangreg, according to the Pew Research Center, a very well-known and accredited research organisation, "Most scientists identify as Democrats (55%), while 32% identify as independents and just 6% say they are Republicans."

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 14, 09 7:02 AM CDT

A search for "modular evolution" turns up little. Only trade journals. From my understanding now, modular evolution is the hypothesis or theory that much evolution happens suddenly due to several "modules" of DNA undergoing high-level mutations. A small chicken becomes a 2-meter tall predator with claws on its wing joints and poisonous fangs in only a few thousand years, for an outlandish but possible example. This is almost the same idea as punctuated equilibria. There are long periods of little change in a species, then suddenly there is big change. Maybe this is just a finer level of looking at p.e. The modules are elements of p.e., so to speak. ............................. Agreed on Lamarkism. I guess I'm just looking for the same kind of mechanism that would have been behind the time of change in Lamarckism -- the moment when the giraffe's neck stretches because *it wants* that fruit higher in the tree. But yeah, Lamarckism was just supernatural science, almost. It has returned several times in similar incidences to this one . . . Anyway, few transition species..... P.E. would produce few transition fossils. So, this Darwinopterus fossil is in mid-jump, so to speak? ........................... And I didn't know that transition examples in trilobites have been found. Were they also in "mid-jump" or is there just a longer history of slower evolution in their case?

IN RESPONSE:

shonangreg
Oct 14, 09 7:09 AM CDT

Aelius, thanks for the data. That is what Rob was asking for before. You missed the chance to bring it up then. ................... While you may sanctimonious guy who always has justification for what he says, many people here are not. And instead of wasting time asking every single time for people to include links or references in potentially controversial assertions, it is easier just to assume anyone *who doesn't*, especially when challenged, is simply better off being ignored. That is the position you put your self in with respect to Rob. And you did not show this respect. .......................... Speaking as just another member here, not as a moderator, you're being asinine.

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 7:13 AM CDT

shonangreg, I appreciate your respectfulness. I don't get the impression Rob was asking for any kind of references. I understood him to be saying that it's inappropriate to be making generalisations - something I hear a lot. I was trying to reason to him that it's not only impractical but impossible to do anything BUT make generalisations for most things about such large amounts of people. If you were in a room with 5 friends you could say "Everyone's been to a concert." but you can't say "Everyone from our high school has been to a concert" with the same degree of accuracy. Hence, generalisations take over at this level.

IN RESPONSE:

Rob
Oct 14, 09 8:26 AM CDT

@greg Trilobites were very common in the warm shallow seas from about a half billion to 2 or 3 hundred million years ago. Since the areas they inhabited were shallow and calm, fossilization was easy when they could fall to the silt at the bottom and be covered relatively fast. We have a "complete" evolutionary history of them for this reason. (And many other shallow marine species too, but trilobites are the evolutionary biologists' darling group. It's also why we have about only a pick-up truck of fossils for human evolution, since our guys lived with in areas where their bones would have been scavenged rather quickly). There are transition species in the trilobites that show periods of change between stable species forms. Evolution's true face is neither Punctuated Equilibrium nor Gradualism, but something in between. Given that, it's not surprising that we would find the rarer transition species falling between islands of stability. As for the pterosaur, it seems we are finding many new species of ancient reptile of late. I'm looking forward to the new picture of the Paleozoic world we are building.

IN RESPONSE:

Snarfeh
Oct 14, 09 12:00 PM CDT

@aelius - THANK YOU! I've been trying to point out for some time that generalizations are necessary in discourse. Anyone with at least half of a brain should know when someone generalizes in a comment, the writer is aware there are exceptions. How can anyone NOT be aware there are exceptions? I believe those who argue about generalizations are simply reaching for something about which to argue.

IN RESPONSE:

Aelius28
Oct 14, 09 12:15 PM CDT

@Snarfeh, I think it has more to do with political correctness. Watch people's faces turn red when you say "Black people are poorer than white people" or "Black people are stronger than white people" or "Muslim culture is more barbaric" "Jews are richer than non-Jews". They're all facts, they're all demonstrably true and yet all too often the first thing you hear is "Well, not ALL blacks are..." "Not ALL Muslims are..." "Not all Jews are..."

IN RESPONSE:

Snarfeh
Oct 14, 09 10:29 PM CDT

@aelius - Yeah, I know it has to do with political correctness and I would expand on what I think of that, but in the interest of not adding more politics to what was a very interesting thread between you, Greg and Rob, I'll let that one go.

| 0 minutes ago

RockyPneumonia
Oct 14, 09 5:38 AM CDT

Since the tea parties are essentially based on the unquestioning acceptance of lies as truth, and since science is all about questioning and digging until assumptions are proven, I'd be very, very surprised if many scientists were participants in tea parties. Reply

IN RESPONSE:

Rob
Oct 14, 09 6:16 AM CDT

I think opposition is unquestioning, actually. But things are truly not as you seem to think they are.

| 0 minutes ago

zik
Oct 14, 09 12:19 PM CDT

This is just cool... Who cares about politics, can't we just settle for being happy that we learned a little bit more about the universe? Reply

| 0 minutes ago

JoeQ
Oct 14, 09 12:58 PM CDT

Wow. That was just about the most interesting collection of comments that I have read yet on a Newser story. Thanks! Reply

| 0 minutes ago

bewilderbeast
Oct 15, 09 9:42 AM CDT

Was there ever a new fossil find that was NOT a "missing link"? Or that didn't PROVE what that paleontologist was trying to prove before he found it? Scientists are as much to blame as reporters in how a story gets condensed and simplified for the lay press. "Modular" vs "incremental" evolution can hardly be proved or disproved from a single fossil. It will be argued both ways depending on that paleontologist's preference. FASCINATING find, though! Reply

| 0 minutes ago

View all 26 comments »

evolution • fossil • Charles Darwin • pterodactyl • reptiles

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Scientists Unearth Fossils of 'Missing Link' Flying Reptiles