Caught on cam

Oldest Bird Fossils Uncovered

By greenexpander ⋅ February 25, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

According to researchers, the oldest known bird fossils from New Zealand were recently unearthed from an isolated stretch of beach on the Chatham Islands.

The fossils represent possibly four new species of seabirds dating back to the late Cretaceous period, around 65 million years ago.

Photograph courtesy Jeffrey D. Stilwell

The photos depict the bird that lived right after dinosaurs went extinct. According to scientists that investigated the discovery, these discoveries include at least four species and two genera new to science.

“This is New Zealand’s oldest fossil aviary, and it has implications for the origin of modern seabirds,” said excavation leader Jeffrey Stilwell of Monash University in Australia.

Bones were revealed by the storms that washed the sand off the bones. “It’s quite spectacular to have that many birds in one deposit,” Stilwell said. “I don’t know of any other site in New Zealand like it.”

“They look very tall and slender,” he said. “We have one little guy who was probably no more than 30 centimeters [12 inches] high.”

Source: NatGeo; photo credit: rick

Tags: bird, bones, dinosaur, discovery, extinct, fossil, scientists