When people think of dinosaurs, Hollywood blockbuster movies such as as Jurassic Park come to mind, especially the Tyrannosaurus rex. However, dinosaurs are still alive and well in modern animals today, where they passed on their dino genes to birds of all sorts and sizes all over the world.

Now, researchers from the Universidad de Chile conducted an experiment resulting in an important breakthrough, showing the evolutionary changes of dinosaurs that eventually transformed into modern day birds by placing genetic modifications on chicken embryos. More specifically, these scientists are growing a dinosaur leg after 65 million years.

Like Us on Facebook

Past studies already involved experiments on chickens that are carried out in order to reveal their dormant dinosaur traits. A research team from the United States was successful enough to make chicken embryos develop beaks that are similar to dinosaurs last year.

In this new study, a team of scientists from Chile was successful in developing dinosaur feet on chicken embryos as they attempted to isolate a maturation gene known as IHH or Indian Hedgehog. More specifically, the researchers manipulated this gene to make the chicken's fibula grow as long as its tibia.

Why? Other avian dinosaurs or those dinosaurs that could fly possessed very distinct long leg bones however, this crucial feature evolved into shorter lengths in a span of millions of years finally appearing so short that the modern day chickens' fibulas no longer connect with their ankles anymore. Researchers then suppressed this IHH gene, where they were able to bring back from the recesses of evolution this ancient, ancestral trait.

According to researcher, Alexander Vargas, these set of experiments are all focusing on single traits in order to test a specific hypotheses. Since there are many studies about the development and evolution of birds from dinosaurs, including strong evidence of dinosaur to bird transition clearly revealed in fossil records, these hypotheses are now explored in laboratory conditions.

However, chicken-dinosaur hybrids will not be seen in zoos or running around in farms in the near future, as none of these embryos used in these experiments survived into hatchling stage. This new study is published in the journal, Evolution.