Why this Jurassic bird fossil from China might rewrite evolutionary history
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The fossil of the short-tailed bird – the first uncovered from the Jurassic period – was discovered in Zhenghe county in the southeast Chinese province of Fujian, and dates back about 150 million years.
'The discovery of [Baminornis zhenghensis] pushes back the first appearance of short-tailed birds by approximately 20 million years,' the researchers wrote in a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature on Thursday.
Baminornis had the advanced chest and short tail found in modern birds, but the forelimb shape of raptor dinosaurs. The bird may have weighed 140-300 grams (4.9-10.6 ounces), or about the same as a pigeon.
The discovery could help researchers understand one of the most significant evolutionary transitions – from bipedal theropod dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus to birds.
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'[This] critical stage of evolution has long been clouded by the rare and spatiotemporally limited fossil record,' the team from the Chinese Academy of Sciences' (CAS) Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology and the Fujian Institute of Geological Survey wrote.
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