Re:Birds had to relearn flight after meteor wiped out dinosaurs
by lomnakkus on Friday May 25, 2018 @10:41PM
(#17159881)
Oh, yes, there are evolutionary dead ends, but e.g. the Moa (or even the Dodo[1]) basically evolved for really long without any evolutionary pressure towards avoiding "enemies" and thus was stuck in a local optimum with no way out.
Still ~25 seconds of sustained flight, just about the record for a chicken, I think seems like not-evolutionary-dead-end-enough to my untrained eye. :). YMMV.
[1] AFAIUI, it was humans that ultimately drove it to extiction, but it could have been any invasive species that would kill bird-like thigs. Maybe I'm wrong on that.
Still ~25 seconds of sustained flight, just about the record for a chicken, I think seems like not-evolutionary-dead-end-enough to my untrained eye. :). YMMV.
[1] AFAIUI, it was humans that ultimately drove it to extiction, but it could have been any invasive species that would kill bird-like thigs. Maybe I'm wrong on that.