FUZHOU: Chinese scientists have unearthed the oldest short-tailed bird fossil, dating back about 150 million years, in east China's Fujian Province. This suggests that birds might have originated earlier than previously thought.
The fossilised bird Baminornis zhenghensis (pic) was discovered in Zhenghe County, Fujian Province. Its short tail ends in a compound bone called the pygostyle, a feature uniquely present in modern birds. This indicates that the body structure of modern birds emerged in the Late Jurassic Period, 20 million years earlier than previously known.
The bird displays a unique combination of traits, including modern bird-like shoulder and pelvic girdles, as well as a non-avian dinosaurian-like hand, which is a very interesting and contradictory phenomenon, said Wang Min, a researcher with the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) under the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and the leading scientist of the research team.
"This is a groundbreaking discovery. It overturns the previous situation that Archaeopteryx was the only bird found in the Jurassic Period," said Zhou Zhonghe, an academician of CAS.
Based on the new discovery, scientists speculate that the emergence of the earliest birds could be traced back to an even earlier time, possibly 172 million to 164 million years ago, according to Wang.
The study, conducted by researchers from IVPP and the Fujian Institute of Geological Survey, was published in the latest issue of the journal Nature. - Xinhua
