The Mesozoic Park: The oldest avian ancestor (so far) While 145 million year old Archaeopteryx retai

The Mesozoic Park: The oldest avian ancestor (so far)While 145 million year old Archaeopteryx retains its title as the oldest known bird, it comes from a branch of the birdy bush of life that went extinct along with the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous (65 million years ago). All modern chirpers are classified as ornithuromorpha, and their lineage just got 5 million years older with the publication of a new find (named Archaeornithura meemanna) from the ever provident Jehol formation in China (see for info on these top notch fossil bearing strata).Weighing in at 130 million years old, the excellent preservation associated with this site meant that the feathers were easy to compare to those of modern birds, and proved that they were clearly meant for flight. Two specimens were found in a chunk of siltstone deposited in a long gone lake, and the serendipitous occurrence suggests to researchers that different bird groups had become established by this time, since the advanced and derived features it displays needed time to evolve.The size of a sparrow with a feathery crest on its head, with a fan shaped tail, it included a feature of the wing feathers called an alula that lives on in modern birds such as kestrels and other advanced features such as a wishbone. Their legs resemble those of wading birds such as herons, appropriate developments for their habitat in a palaeo landscape of ginkgo and cypress shadowed lakes.The race is now on to find an even earlier actual bird in the underlying Jurassic Daohugou formation (see http://on.fb.me/1Hnu8YF), that would certainly dethrone Archaeopteryx, since these similar rocks are 160-164 million years old.LozImage credit: Illustration: Zongda Zhang, photo Wang et al., Nature Communicationshttp://bit.ly/1PoJMY3http://bit.ly/1PoJIYihttp://bit.ly/1EgtnyThttp://wapo.st/1zMwkfdOriginal paper, paywall access: http://bit.ly/1OZ7Vtk -- source link

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