WONDERCHICKEN!
67million-year-old fossil is the earliest known ancestor of modern birds
THE oldest fossil of a modern bird has been discovered – and has features of both ducks and chickens.
The ‘Wonderchicken’, as it has been nicknamed, dates back 66.7million years and was found in a limestone quarry in Belgium.
Scientists suggest it may be the common ancestor of water birds such as ducks and landin based birds such as chickens, although it is not known if the bird quacked or clucked.
The fossil dates from less than one million years before the asteroid impact that eliminated all large dinosaurs.
The bird would have lived along the shoreline in the area, now on the border with the Netherlands, and which at the time would have had a climate similar to the Bahamas.
Its formal name is Asteriornis, reference to Asteria, the Greek Titan goddess offalling stars.
Researchers used high-resolution X-ray CT scans to peer through the rock and view the skull just one millimetre beneath.
Albert Chen, a Phd student based at Cambridge, said: ‘The originsoflivingbirddiversityare shrouded in mystery. This fossil p rovides o ur e arliest d irect glimpse of what modern birds were l ike d uring t he i nitial s tages of their evolutionary history.’
dr daniel Field from Cambridge’s department of Earth Sciences, who led the research, said:‘ThemomentIfirstsawwhat was beneath the rock was the m ost e xciting m oment o f m y scientific career.
‘This is one of the best preserved fossil bird skulls of any age, from anywhere in the world. This fossil tells us that early on, at least some modern birds were fairly small-bodied, ground-dwelling b irds t hat l ived near the seashore.
‘Asteriornis now gives us a search image for future fossil discoveries – hopefully it ushers in a new era of fossil finds that help c larify h ow, w hen a nd w here modern birds first evolved.’
The f ossil r esearch i s p ublished in the journal Nature.
‘Climate similar to the Bahamas’