ArticleBiology letters2018
The origin of the bird's beak: new insights from dinosaur incubation periods.
Article in Biology letters, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
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14 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Challenging and redefining Dollo's law of evolution: re-appearance of lost structures.BMC ecology and evolution · 2025Review
- Article
- Cellular, Molecular, and Genetic Mechanisms of Avian Beak Development and Evolution.Annual review of genetics · 2024Review
- Transitional chelal digit patterns in saprophagous astigmatan mites.Experimental & applied acarology · 2024Article
- Cranial functional specialisation for strength precedes morphological evolution in Oviraptorosauria.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Comparative microstructural study on the teeth of Mesozoic birds and non-avian dinosaurs.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Feeding without teeth: the material properties of rhamphothecae from two species of durophagous sea turtles.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- The diet of early birds based on modern and fossil evidence and a new framework for its reconstruction.Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society · 2021Review
- Making region-specific integumentary organs in birds: evolution and modifications.Current opinion in genetics & development · 2021Review
- Article
- Molecular phyloecology suggests a trophic shift concurrent with the evolution of the first birds.Communications biology · 2021Article
- Macroevolutionary dynamics of dentition in Mesozoic birds reveal no long-term selection towards tooth loss.iScience · 2021Article
- Decelerated dinosaur skull evolution with the origin of birds.PLoS biology · 2020Article
- Ultramicrostructural reductions in teeth: implications for dietary transition from non-avian dinosaurs to birds.BMC evolutionary biology · 2020Article
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2 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The toothless beak of modern birds was considered as an adaption for feeding ecology; however, several recent studies suggested that developmental factors are also responsible for the toothless beak. Neontological and palaeontological studies have progressively uncovered how birds evolved toothless beaks and suggested that the multiple occurrences of complete edentulism in non-avian dinosaurs were the result of selection for specialized diets. Although developmental biology and ecological factors are not mutually exclusive, the conventional hypothesis that ecological factors account for the toothless beak appears insufficient. A recent study on dinosaur incubation period using embryonic teeth posited that tooth formation rate limits developmental speed, constraining toothed dinosaur incubation to slow reptilian rates. We suggest that selection for tooth loss was a side effect of selection for fast embryo growth and thus shorter incubation. This observation would also explain the multiple occurrences of tooth loss and beaks in non-avian dinosaur taxa crownward of
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