Fossil of 127-million-year-old baby bird gives insight into evolution

PanARMENIAN.Net - The fossil of a 127-million-year-old baby bird has been unearthed, paving the way for understanding how birds evolved during the age of dinosaurs, Fox News reports.

The research, published in Nature Communications, shows the bird belonged to the enantiornithine family, a group that contained many specimens that had teeth and clawed fingers on each wing.

One of the study's co-authors, Luis Chiappe, from the LA Museum of Natural History, said that the new discovery will let researchers peer into a past they had little access to until now. "This new discovery, together with others from around the world, allows us to peek into the world of ancient birds that lived during the age of dinosaurs," he said.

"It is amazing to realize how many of the features we see among living birds had already been developed more than 100 million years ago," Chiappe added.

According to research provided by the University of California's Museum of Paleontology, the fossil record of birds is not overly extensive. The Archaeopteryx, a dinosaur-like bird, is still the oldest bird fossil on record, having lived 150 million years ago.

The university does note, however, that by 35 million years ago, "most of the bird orders that we recognize today had appeared."

As such, fossils of birds from this era are extremely rare and highlight some of the changes that have happened over time.