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| Wonderchicken: Ever Oldest Fossil-66.5 Million Years Ago |
The WonderChicken, the ever oldest fossil
discovered the -the mash up of modern bird hen and chicken, lived almost 67
million years ago, prior asteroid impact-mass extinction event -less than half
million years ago-meaning doomed of nonavian of dinosaur. This discovery helps
to restate the evolution of bird living. Currently bird evolution period is
considered as the period related to Late Cretaceous that is 145-66.5 million
years. Further, Wonderchicken discovery might help to re-determine the history
of evolution of modern bird more corrective way.
The discovered fossil remains found in
Romontbos Quarry near fort Eben-Emael in Liege, on the border of
Beligum-Netherlands).This is a small rock, providing no evidence with naked
eye.The fossil is like quail-size, and in weight is
only 400 grams.
Wonderchicken-mash up of modern living birds like hen and duck
Image Source: Bird scientific name is Asteriorinis Maastrichtensis
The Scientist and its team have used tomography
technique, using x-ray for scanning, to look inside the rock. The analyses
reveals that the fossil is consist of a complete skull and a few limbs of bones
poking out of it, which are closely related to the group of birds known as Crown-Group-including
quail, woodpeckers, crows, gulls, finches, etc –also termed as the recent
common ancestors, reported in Nature on March 18.
The moment I first saw beneath what was beneath
the rock was the most exciting moment of my scientific career, “said
palaebiologist, Daniel Field at the University of Cambridge.
Asteriornis Maastrichtensis skull is “a never
previously seen mashup of ducklike and chickenlike features,” says Daniel
Field,a vertebrate paleontologist at the university of Cambridge. “It looks
like turducken”
Last estimates, based on the molecular study,
recommend that history of evolution of modern birds had started roughly 66
million years ago before the mass extinction event. The excellent preservation
of fossil has put the modern bird evolution on new scene. The age of this bird has completely proved
that the early estimates ranging from 139 million to 89 million years ago about
the early-early-birds evolution being wrong, said Kevin Padian, a vertebrate
paleontologist at the University of California.
Asteriornis Maastrichtensis is the scientific
name of the newly discovered bird, called it wonderchicken-features like beaked
and limbs of bones resembling with ancestors of common birds like landfowl and
waterfowl. Actually this name is honoring the ancient Greek goddess of falling
star, Asteria- turning herself into a Quail.
The front part of the skull resembles with
chicken beak. A barnyard chicken used to eat everything that put in front of
it. The beak of the fossil is also nonspecialized one comparing with the other
birds having specialized beaks for their particular diets, for example beaks of
Hummingbird.
The part of the skull characteristic seems more
likely to waterfowl –duck. One feature among others is the distinct bone
connected with the back of the skull and the base of the eye socket. Detailed
scanning of limb bones suggests that the length of the A. maastrichtensis had
fairly long. Further rock is made up of marine sediments recommending that a
bird was searching food near the seashore.
History
The most relevant
study about the bird evolution refers to the Archaeopteryx; some 150 million
years ago belong to the late Jurassic time period. Behold the Archaeopteryx;
broadly it has been considered the first bird of the planet. It has feathers
that were used to fly. Its structure and
shape-don’t permit us to group it with present day living bird, but linked with
its lineage. Birds can be classified into two groups: Crown-group birds and
Stem-Group birds. The below figure illustrates the hierarchy of birds.
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| Wonderchicken living birds lineage |
Image Source: Nature
Crown-Group of Birds
This group includes the collection of all living
bird like ostriches, warblers, quails, gulls, finches, woodpeckers, crows and
so on, together with all the descendants
of their most recent common ancestor (from ancient ostriches, warbles, and
other living birds group).
Stem-Group of Birds
This group represents all those birds that are not part of the living
groups of birds. In other words, all the birds of Archaeopteryx period are
placed into this group.
Interested to explore the full length of study published by Nature.