BRISBANE, Australia, Nov. 8 (UPI) -- Australian biologists have determined ancient birds acted more like turkeys than common cuckoos, primarily remaining on the ground rather than in trees.
The University of Queensland researchers said they reached their hypothesis by comparing claw curvatures of ancient and modern birds.
"The claws of Mesozoic birds and their immediate ancestors, the non-avian theropods, are relatively 'straight' -- most like (those) of birds that are now either specialized for walking on the ground or have a preference for it, rather than the highly curved claws of birds that spend a lot of time in trees," said biologist Christopher Glen.
"We were particularly surprised by the fact that all the fossil species, representing evolutionary lineages from non-flying ancestors to early flying birds, had claws more like modern birds that spend most of their time on the ground."
The study appears in the journal Current Biology.
