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https://nypost.com/2018/05/03/fossil-discovery-shows-ancient-creature-was-half-bird-half-dinosaur/
WASHINGTON – A primitive seabird that prospered about 85 million years ago along the warm, shallow inland sea that once split North America boasted what scientists are calling a surprising blend of traits from its dinosaur ancestors and modern avian characteristics.
Four new fossils of Ichthyornis, which had both a beak and teeth and lived a lifestyle like modern gulls, offer striking evidence of this Cretaceous Period bird’s important position in avian evolutionary history, researchers said on Wednesday. The research was published in the journal Nature.
While Ichthyornis fossils were first unearthed in the 1870s, the new ones from Kansas and Alabama chalk deposits, including a beautifully preserved skull, reveal far more about it than previously known.
Birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs. Unlike the earliest-known birds like Archaeopteryx, which lived 150 million years ago, Ichthyornis was a strong flier, its body streamlined, simplified and adapted for flight like modern birds, Yale University paleontologist Bhart-Anjan Bhullar said.
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It's amazing to realize that today's birds are direct descendants of the dinosaurs.
WASHINGTON – A primitive seabird that prospered about 85 million years ago along the warm, shallow inland sea that once split North America boasted what scientists are calling a surprising blend of traits from its dinosaur ancestors and modern avian characteristics.
Four new fossils of Ichthyornis, which had both a beak and teeth and lived a lifestyle like modern gulls, offer striking evidence of this Cretaceous Period bird’s important position in avian evolutionary history, researchers said on Wednesday. The research was published in the journal Nature.
While Ichthyornis fossils were first unearthed in the 1870s, the new ones from Kansas and Alabama chalk deposits, including a beautifully preserved skull, reveal far more about it than previously known.
Birds evolved from small feathered dinosaurs. Unlike the earliest-known birds like Archaeopteryx, which lived 150 million years ago, Ichthyornis was a strong flier, its body streamlined, simplified and adapted for flight like modern birds, Yale University paleontologist Bhart-Anjan Bhullar said.
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It's amazing to realize that today's birds are direct descendants of the dinosaurs.
