Chick’s genes can be manipulated to lengthen its legs to dinosaur-like proportions, say researchers

In an interesting genetic modification project, researchers said the genes of a chick can be altered to lengthen its legs to dinosaur-like proportions. But, there is no need to worry about the ‘dawn of the dinosaurs’ as these ‘dino-chicks’ have so far failed to hatch.

According to a press release, the aim of the project wasn’t to come up with dinosaurs for commercial or non-scientific purposes, just like the case of 'Jurassic Park' series.

It could recall the work done by researchers who have grown human-like ears atop rats, but the motive behind this forced cross-species experiment is entirely different.

Published last week in the journal Evolution, the aim of the study is to showcase how evolution could work in the long-term. The Agence France-Presse reported that the study suggested that because of the evolutionary link between chickens and dinosaurs, the strange shod chick went through ‘reverse evolution’.

While speaking to AFP, Alexander Vargas, one of the six researchers at the University of Chile, said that by halting early maturation of a leg of the chicken embryo, the leg takes back the shape that the legs of the dinosaurs had.

The comparison with ‘Jurassic Park’ isn’t entirely unsuitable, as the work has backed the theory that evolution of birds has taken place from theropods, a small kind of dinosaur, 145 million years back during the Jurassic period.

Dr. Vargas told the AFP that the study has thrown light over the genetic alterations linked to the evolutionary patterns that were studied by biologists in the fossil record.

In the study, researchers wrote, “Fossil evidence supports the evolution of a fibula that was splinter-like, but almost as long as the tibia, before convergent evolution in different lineages of a strongly reduced fibula”.