VOLOS: The 115-million-year-old remains of a tiny toothed bird with a two-pronged tail resembling a pair of darts have filled knowledge gaps about feather evolution, scientists reported. The remarkably-preserved 3-D specimen from northeast Brazil is the oldest bird fossil yet from Gondwana, the supercontinent that broke up into today’s southern landmasses.
Until now, birds with this unusual and now extinct tail design were known to have lived only in China, which was not part of Gondwana, during this period of Earth’s history.
“The bird looks like a small hummingbird,” study co-author Ismar Carvalho of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro told AFP.
“It has big eyes, plumes (feathers) surrounding the body and two long feathers in the tail. There are also teeth in his beak.”
The critter measured about six centimetres (2.4 inches) from the tip of its nose to the beginning of its double-shafted, ribbon-like tail.
Not yet given a name, the new bird belonged to a group known as Enantiornithes whose members had teeth and clawed wings, and are not thought to have left any living descendants.
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