ReviewPhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2025
When the lung invades: a review of avian postcranial skeletal pneumaticity.
Review in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Computed tomography reveals multiple origins of extreme caudal vertebral pneumaticity in sauropod dinosaurs.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- New information on Late Triassic sauropodomorph dinosaurs provides support for the independent acquisition of postcranial skeletal pneumaticity in avemetatarsalian lineages.Journal of anatomy · 2026Article
- The living dinosaur: accomplishments and challenges of reconstructing dinosaur physiology.Biology letters · 2025Review
- Unidirectional airflow, air sacs or the horizontal septum: what does it take to make a bird lung?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Development of postcranial pneumaticity in the turkey (Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Biology of the avian respiratory system: development, evolutionary morphology, function and clinical considerations.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- The influence of soft tissue volume on estimates of skeletal pneumaticity: implications for fossil archosaurs.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- When the lung invades: a review of avian postcranial skeletal pneumaticity.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Review
- Evidence for the Loss of Pneumatization and Pneumosteal Tissues in Secondarily Aquatic Archosaurs.Integrative organismal biology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Birds are unique among extant tetrapods in exhibiting air-filled cavities that arise from the respiratory system and invade postcranial bones, a phenomenon called postcranial skeletal pneumaticity (PSP). These intraosseous cavities originate from diverticula of the ventilatory air sacs or directly from the gas-exchanging lung. Despite a long history of study, many of the basic characteristics of this system remain poorly understood. In this hybrid review, we synthesize insights from the anatomical, developmental, biomechanical and paleontological literature to review the functional and evolutionary significance of PSP. Leveraging new data, we confirm that the skeletons of pneumatic birds are not less heavy for their mass than those of apneumatic birds. Pneumatic skeletons may nonetheless be lightweight with respect to body volume, but this is a hypothesis that remains to be empirically tested. We also use micro-computed tomography scanning and deep learning-based segmentation to produce a pilot model of the pneumatized spaces in the neck of a Mallard (
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