Paleontologists discovered evidence of an even older planet around 80 miles from the westernmost stretch of China’s Great Wall. Over the previous two decades, scientists have discovered more than 100 fossil birds from the period of the dinosaurs, which lived around 120 million years ago. Many of these fossils, however, have been difficult to identify since they are fragmentary or heavily crushed. Researchers analyzed six of these fossils and discovered two new species in a recent report published in the Journal of Systematics and Evolution. One of the new species featured a moveable bony attachment at the end of its lower jaw, which might have assisted the bird in digging for food.
Changma, a fossil site in northeastern China, is crucial to academics like O’Connor, who study bird evolution. It’s the world’s second-richest Mesozoic (Dinosaur Age) bird fossil site, even though more than 50% of the fossils discovered there are from the species Gansus yumenensis. It’s difficult to tell which fossils are Gansus and which aren’t; the six specimens reviewed by O’Connor and her colleagues are mostly heads and necks, which aren’t preserved in known Gansus specimens. The fossils had also been crammed by their time down below, making analysis difficult.
Meemannavis ductrix as well as Brevidentavis zhangi are the names of two new species (rather, more technically, genera – genus is a level above species in the hierarchy researchers employ to identify creatures).
Brevidentavis seems to be an ornithuromorph bird with teeth, and ornithuromorphs with teeth have a small bone at the very front of their jaw called the predentary that serves as the bird’s chin if it had one. We may assume that these toothed birds had small beaks with moveable pincers at the tip of their jaws right in front of their teeth.
Brevidentavis isn’t the first fossil bird to be found with a predentary that may have been utilized in this fashion, but its discovery, together with that of Meemannavis, adds to our knowledge of ancient bird variety, particularly in the Changma area.
