Evolution: dinosaurs to birds; Bechly redux (Evolution)

by David Turell , Saturday, March 01, 2025, 19:35 (13 days ago) @ David Turell

A new real bird finding in China:

https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/rOo8HrgVnGDego919P0Y-WSJNewsPaper-3-1-20...

"FOR MORE THAN a century, scientists believed that a fossil of a winged dinosaur from the
Jurassic Period discovered 160 years ago in Germany represented the earliest birds. Now, researchers have unearthed another creature from the same period that more closely resembled the avians of today—indicating that birds evolved much earlier than previously thought.

"The newly discovered bird, known as Baminornis zhenghensis, weighed about 3.5n ounces and was about the size of a common quail. It had a short tail with some vertebrae fused into a stubby nubbin—a crucial aerodynamic feature of modern birds that shifts the body’s center of mass toward the wings, improving flight. Creatures with bone structures resembling modern birds weren’t believed to have appeared until nearly 20 million years later, in the early Cretaceous Period. But the new fossil, uncovered in southeastern China in 2023, tells a different evolutionary story.

"Isotope dating of the surrounding mudstone indicated that the fossils were between 148 million and 150 million years old, roughly the same age as Archaeopteryx, previously believed to be the oldest example of a bird. With feathers like a bird but a long tail and claws similar to a reptile, the hybrid characteristics of Archaeopteryx have led to debates about its classification. About a dozen Archaeopteryx fossils have been uncovered, all in the southern German state of Bavaria. “Paleontologists once expected more Jurassic bird fossils to emerge, but none did— until now,” said Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at
the University of Edinburgh who wasn’t involved in the research. “This is very exciting."

"Fossils of birds are rare be cause of their fragile bones. When Wang held the Baminornis zhenghensis fossil for the first time, he said, his heart raced. “If there are still any doubts about how birdy Archaeopteryx is,” he said, “Baminornis is undoubtedly a real bird.”

Comment: this settles the argument. Dinosaurs gave us birds.