New species of ancient birds were discovered 100 million years ago
4hw.com.cn: This is a 'bird leg' from 100 million years ago. It escaped the 'corrosion' of time under the package of amber, and was brought back by Chinese collectors from Myanmar and hidden in the museum. One hundred million years later, the Chinese and foreign team led by Chinese paleontologist Xing Lida began to study it. On July 11, 2019, the research team officially announced that a new species of ancient birds had been found in Myanmar amber for the first time. Paleontologists identified the specimen as a new genus and new species. The genus was named elektorornis, which means birds in amber, and the species was named Chen Guang amber bird (elektorornis chenguangi) to pay tribute to Mr. Chen Guang, who collects fossils.
What does this amber bird look like? What are its living habits? What kind of legend has it experienced in its discovery process? When Xing Lida came to Chongqing to explore the dinosaur footprints of Gele Mountain, he accepted an exclusive interview with the upstream News & middot; Chongqing Morning Post and revealed the reasons behind the discovery.
The 'middle toe' of the new bird is nearly twice as long as the other toes
Turning on his mobile phone, Xing Lida called out the 'bird leg' wrapped in amber. The amber wrapped in it is very small, about 3.5cm long and weighing 5.5G. It is produced in hugang Valley, Kachin state, northern Myanmar.
"The amber fossils of amber birds found this time are from hugang Valley, Kachin state, northern Myanmar. Geologists found after measuring the volcanic ash in the mining area that the amber here was formed about 99 million years ago and belongs to the earliest stage of the late Cretaceous. Therefore, it is considered to be the only window for human beings to see the real Cretaceous world."
Xing Lida said that in 2016, his team first discovered the world's first ancient bird and dinosaur inclusions in amber in hugang Valley, which caused a sensation in domestic and foreign media. Since then, the team has made a series of important discoveries, such as the first record of snakes in amber.
Although the volume of amber is very small, micro CT provides such a small specimen with a detailed and three-dimensional three-dimensional anatomical structure, which is difficult to achieve in traditional ancient bird fossils.
Through the reconstruction, segmentation and fusion of CT data, Xing Lida's team finally got the high-definition 3D shape of all bones without damage, which also enabled paleontologists to see the whole picture of the ancient bird from a 'bird leg'.
The specimen shows that each toe bone of amber bird is very long, especially the third toe, about 9.8mm, which is its longest toe bone. 'the third toe of amber bird is significantly prolonged, which is a phenomenon not observed in any Mesozoic birds.' the length of the first toe and the second toe are very close, the former is 86% of the latter's length, and the length of the second toe is 59% of the third toe. These proportions are different It is applicable to any other Mesozoic birds and even modern birds.
The research team grasped this distinctive feature and compared it with all recorded birds in the world. The comparison results showed that this' bird leg 'was unique, which finally led the research team to confirm that the' bird leg 'wrapped in amber belonged to a new ancient bird.
Amber birds are smaller than sparrows and eat insects with super long 'middle toes'
What is the size and habit of this amber bird?
In this regard, Xing Lida said that the amber bird is petite. Judging from the preserved leg length of about 3cm, its body length is much smaller than that of sparrows.
Due to the special preservation conditions of amber, the soft tissue of amber bird is also well preserved. Scholars observed under the microscope that its horny scale filamentous feathers are sparsely distributed on the dorsal surface of phalanges. In addition, there are feather areas at the tip of the left wing, including primary and secondary flying feathers exposed on the surface of amber.
"The ancient birds in the hugang Valley previously described by paleontologists are young birds, and the amber bird is the first sub adult or adult ancient bird found locally." Zou Jingmei said, "the identification feature of the amber bird is the significant extension of the third toe, which is a phenomenon not observed in any Mesozoic birds. In addition, its large curved claws and quite long I toe strongly suggest this It is an adaptive characteristic of arboreal '.
Xing Lida said that in the absence of comparison with existing similar birds, the function of the extended third toe of amber birds is difficult to determine. The enhanced foot grasping ability may be a better adaptation to arboreal habitat, but if judged in combination with the horny scales and filamentous feathers that can be used to perceive, it may also be related to the specialization of predation.
'for example, Madagascar's fingered monkey, whose middle and ring fingers are very thin, is often used to knock trees, locate moths, pick them out and swallow them. The horny scale filiform feather of amber birds is the longest and strongest on the third toe, which may increase the long toe as a moth detector and adopt a similar feeding strategy as fingered monkeys.'
Xing Lida said that this special small ancient bird lived in the humid tropical environment in northern Myanmar at that time. Unfortunately, it was wrapped in resin from cypress or Araucaria coniferous trees, forming amber in a long geological age and has been preserved to this day.
The amber wrapped around it is like a time capsule, vividly showing its unique toe shape to today's people, further clarifying the radiation evolution of anti birds in the Cretaceous, and revealing some possible predation strategies that birds once used but later abandoned.
All birds evolved from dinosaurs in the Cretaceous
Nowadays, many media reports mention that chickens are the 'offspring' of dinosaurs. Is this the case?
Xing Lida said, "it's not just chickens. To be exact, all the birds we see now actually evolved from dinosaurs."
Birds are one of the vertebrates with the most abundant biodiversity in the world, with about 10500 species. In the long evolution history of nearly 150 million years, they have experienced two radiation evolution in Cretaceous and Cenozoic. The Cretaceous is an important stage of bird evolution, recording how birds evolved from dinosaurs.
Since 1861, paleontologists have successively discovered fossils of Archaeopteryx, the oldest known bird ancestor, and have proved that Archaeopteryx has a close relationship with carnivorous theropod dinosaurs.
In 2014, researchers from Australia, Britain, Italy and other countries constructed complex mathematical models based on more than 1500 anatomical features of 120 kinds of dinosaurs to analyze the body shape changes of dinosaurs in the process of evolution. The analysis results showed that one of the theropods had shrunk from generation to generation. After 50 million years of such "slimming", they finally evolved into birds - 210 million years ago The average weight is 163 kg, which has dropped to 0.8 kg when Archaeopteryx evolved.
At the same time, paleontologists discovered the fossils of neosaurus about 160 million years ago in Jianchang, Liaoning Province, China. The long and thick forelimbs of neosaurus had flying feathers, which were arranged in a manner similar to bird feathers, indicating that the prototype of wings appeared in dinosaurs at least 160 million years ago. Several other theropod dinosaurs, such as small Raptor and tail feather like dinosaurs, had structures similar to feather wings.
Xing Lida said that based on these fossil evidence, dinosaurs may have gone through a stage when they became birds. Some dinosaurs' bodies gradually became smaller and looked more and more like birds: their bones were hollow and their bodies were light; their brains expanded and their actions were agile; their forelimbs grew longer and longer and could beat like bird wings; beautiful feathers grew on their body surface and no longer wore scales or scales. One of them These arboreal dinosaurs jumped and landed between trees, gradually became capable of gliding, and finally took the initiative to fly.