Bird evolution; earliest birds (Introduction)

by David Turell , Tuesday, May 05, 2015, 17:49 (3490 days ago) @ David Turell

Literally flying dinosaur cousins:-"The extinct species, of which two fossils were discovered in China's northeastern Hebei province about two years ago, was the earliest known member of the Ornithuromorpha branch that also gave us Neornithes, or modern birds.-"'The new fossil represents the oldest record (about 130.7 million years ago) of Ornithuromorpha," study co-author Wang Min of the Chinese Academy of Sciences told AFP by email.-"'It pushed back the origination date of Ornithuromorpha by at least five million years" and the divergence of modern birds by about the same margin.-"The previous oldest known example of Ornithuromorpha lived about 125 million years ago.-"According to an artist's impression, the new bird, dubbed Archaeornithura meemannae, shared many features with its modern cousins, apart from tiny, sharp claws on its wings.-"It stood about 15 centimetres (six inches) tall on two legs that had no feathers—suggesting it may have been a wader from a lake shore environment." -
 Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-05-early-bird-avian-clock.html#jCp