04-03-2025
Scientists found a fossil of a Jurassic bird. Here's how it could rewrite history.
Scientists found a fossil of a Jurassic bird. Here's how it could rewrite history.
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Scientists uncovered a 149-million-year-old bird fossil in southeastern China with unexpectedly modern traits they believe could rewrite the evolutionary history of birds.
The recently discovered quail-sized creature, called Baminornis zhenghensis, flew through the skies when dinosaurs roamed the earth and is among the oldest birds ever discovered, along with the similarly aged Archaeopteryx that was found in Germany in the 1860s. The Archaeopteryx, a bird-like dinosaur that scientists describe as more reptilian-like than modern birds, were about the size of a crow.
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Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences unearthed the fossil in 2023 while conducting field work in the coastal Fujian Province of China where more than 100 other fossils have been found. The study was published in the journal Nature last month.
Steve Brusatte, a University of Edinburgh paleontologist, called Baminornis a 'landmark discovery' in a commentary published in Nature alongside the study. The finding, he wrote, is among the first proof that birds lived alongside dinosaurs during the Jurassic Period. The finding helps scientists answer longstanding questions about when birds began to diversify into the flying animals we think of today.
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Edward Braun, a professor of biology at the University of Florida who has studied the evolution of birds, said the study's findings suggest that there was a 'much earlier diversification of birds with these modern features' than previously thought, pushing back the timeline of bird evolution.
When the Archaeopteryx was discovered around 1861, it was heralded as evidence that birds were soaring in the skies by the end of the Jurassic Period. Charles Darwin said the discovery supported his theory of natural selection. But for more than a century, it remained the only bird fossil from that era.
Unlike the Archaeopteryx, which featured more reptilian traits and a long tail similar to that of a velociraptor, researchers today believe the Baminornis' light-weight structure and shorter tail make it more similar to modern-day birds that easily fly by flapping their wings through the air.
Until Baminornis, the only known birds with shorter tails were believed to have lived about 20 million years later.
The fact that the Baminornis and Archaeopteryx lived during the same period more than 5,000 miles apart from one another and each with unique features suggests that some bird evolution had already occurred in the Jurassic Period, the study states.
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Braun, who was not part of the study and focuses his research on bird genome evolution, told USA TODAY discovering when species morphed helps scientists understand changes in DNA. While he said he doesn't necessarily think news of the Baminornis will change the understanding of the bird genome, he said it will contribute to our broader knowledge about the history of life.
'Understanding how the universe works, how life changed over time, gives us a lot of perspective,' Braun said. 'It gives us a framework to understand how life has changed.'
