A groundbreaking discovery has shed new light on the origin of birds, one of the most diverse groups of terrestrial vertebrates. A research team led by Professor Wang Min from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in China has found two bird fossils in Jurassic-era rocks from Fujian Province. The 149-million-year-old fossils provide conclusive evidence that birds diversified by the end of the Jurassic period.
The findings, published in Nature, fill a significant gap in the early evolutionary history of birds. For years, researchers have debated the earliest diversification of birds, with many pointing to the Jurassic period as a key time. However, the fossil record has been fragmented, making it difficult to reconstruct the evolutionary journey of birds.
One of the fossils, Baminornis zhenghensis, displays a unique combination of features that blur the line between early bird and dinosaur traits. The discovery reveals that mosaic evolution played a crucial role in the development of modern birds. Notably, Baminornis has a short tail with a pygostyle, a feature characteristic of living birds.
The study’s results suggest that Baminornis zhenghensis is one of the oldest known bird fossils and provides conclusive evidence of the early diversification of birds. The team used various methods to explore the fossil’s position in the evolutionary tree of birds, concluding that it represents an intermediate stage between Archaeopteryx and modern birds.
The discovery also highlights the importance of reevaluating the phylogenetic status of Archaeopteryx, a species long considered the earliest known bird. The findings challenge previous assumptions about the origins of birds and provide new insights into their evolutionary history.
Source: https://phys.org/news/2025-02-china-jurassic-fossil-discovery-bird.html