Scientist Discovered Some Of The Earliest Known Seed-Eating Perching Bird

Perching birds or passerines like sparrows, finches, robins, crows make up about 6,500 of the 10,000 bird species alive today. Once they were rare and scientists are still learning about their origins.

Researchers have announced in a new paper in Current Biology, the discovery of one of the earliest known passerine birds, from 52 million years ago. Field Museum Neguanee Distinguished Service Curator Lance Grande, an author of the paper told the fossil is a complete skeleton with the feathers still attached, which is extremely rare in the fossil record of birds. Two new fossil bird species are described in the paper one from Germany that lived 47 million years ago, and another that lived in what's now Wyoming 52 million years ago, the Early Eocene period.

Eofringillirostrum boudreauxi, Wyoming bird is the earliest example of a bird with a finch-like beak, similar to today's sparrows. Eofringilllirostrum means "dawn finch beak." Daniel Ksepka, the paper's lead author, curator at the Bruce Museum in Connecticut said thick beaks hint at their diet and these bills are particularly well-suited for consuming small, hard seeds.

Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, the co-author said that researchers were able to show that a comparable diversity of bill types already developed in the Eocene period.

Ksepka told that the distance between the two fossils sites shows they were widespread throughout the Eocene, whereas the scarcity of known fossils suggests a rather low range of individuals.

E. boudreauxi had the good luck to live and die near Fossil Lake; it is a famous site for perfect fossilization conditions. Fossil Lake has everything from fishes and crocs to insects, reptiles, birds, pollen and early mammals told Grande.

Grande notes the lake provides a unique look at the ancient world, one of the most detailed pictures of life on Earth after the extinction of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. Knowing what happened in the past gives us a better understanding of the present and may help figure out where the future is going.

Keeping that in mind, Grande plans to continue his exploration of the locale. He said that he has been going to Fossil Lake every year for the last 35 years and founding is this bird is one of the reasons he will keep going back.

By: Aishwarya Sharma

Content: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2019/02/190207115003.htm