The neck is a critical portion of the avian spine, one that works in tandem with the beak to act
as a surrogate forelimb and allows birds to manipulate their surroundings despite the lack of …

Evolvability is best addressed from a multi-level, macroevolutionary perspective through a
comparative approach that tests for among-clade differences in phenotypic diversification in …

Turtles have a highly modified body plan, including a rigid shell that constrains postcranial
anatomy. Skull morphology and neck mobility may therefore be key to ecological …

The concept of evolvability—the capacity of a population to produce and maintain
evolutionarily relevant variation—has become increasingly prominent in evolutionary …

Birds are some of the most diverse organisms on Earth, with species inhabiting a wide
variety of niches across every major biome. As such, birds are vital to our understanding of …

Background The origin of birds from non-avian theropod dinosaur ancestors required a
comprehensive restructuring of the body plan to enable the evolution of powered flight. One …

Taphonomic and diagenetic processes inevitably distort the original skeletal morphology of
fossil vertebrate remains. Key aspects of palaeobiological datasets may be directly impacted …

Some birds' necks show excellent flexible bending ability, which can be mimicked to design
bionic robot. The main challenge is how to deal with the bird neck's inherent flexibility and …

The Triassic radiation of vertebrates saw the emergence of the modern vertebrate groups, as
well as numerous extinct animals exhibiting conspicuous, unique anatomical characteristics …

The axial skeleton of all vertebrates is composed of individual units known as vertebrae.
Each vertebra has individual anatomical attributes, yet they can be classified in five different …