Missing link to the dinosaurs, a seagull with teeth
IT’S a question scientists have been chewing over for decades – how did dinosaurs with teeth evolve into modern-day birds with beaks?
But by piecing together this fossil, they’ve uncovered the a pivotal moment in the transition: A seagull-sized bird complete with a full set of gnashers.
The Ichthyornis dispar, which lived in North America about 86million years ago, was first discovered in the 1870s.
Most fossils are squashed flat, making it almost impossible to look at the details of the skull and anatomy of the brain.
But a rare complete 3D skull of the bird was found, along with two previously overlooked cranial elements.
Scientists from the universities of Bath and Yale in the US used CT scans to analyse the fossils. Yale palaeontologist Bhart-Anjan Bhullar, whose research was published in journal Nature, said the fossil showed what the bird beak would have looked like.
He said: ‘Right under our noses this whole time was an amazing, transitional bird.
‘It has a modern-looking brain along with a remarkably dinosaurian jaw muscle configuration. The first beak was a horn- covered pincer tip at the end of the jaw.
‘The remainder of the jaw was filled with teeth. At its origin, the beak was a precision grasping mechanism that served as a surrogate hand as the hands transformed into wings.’