Many dinosaurs had large “flight-ready” brains long before
some of them soared the skies as ancestors of modern birds, according to new
research published today in Nature by a New York Institute of Technology
scientist and three other researchers.
Assistant Professor Gaberiel Bever, Ph.D., of the College of
Osteopathic Medicine, was part of a team that completed one of the first
comprehensive studies detailing the relatively large size of birds’ brains and
how they evolved.
The “bird brain” cliché is actually a misnomer; bird brains,
like those of mammals, are relatively large compared to body size, Bever said,
adding that the study’s conclusions also refute the common notion that the
large forebrain of birds evolved as part its flight system.