Skeleton of Navaornis hestiae, an 80 million year old fossil bird
S. Abramowicz/Dinosaur Institute/Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
An 80 million year old fossil the bird it has been found with a skull so beautifully preserved that scientists have been able to study the exact structure of its brain.
Age and evolutionary development, new species, named Bone of Navaorn It is almost halfway between the oldest known bird-like dinosaurs, Archaeopteryxwhich lived 150 million years ago, and modern birds. It lived in the Cretaceous along with the dinosaurs the tyrannosaurus and Triceratops.
The fossil, which resembles the skin of a starling, was discovered near Presidente Prudente in Brazil in 2016 and was immediately recognized as significant because it was a rarity for a complete bird skeleton, especially one of this age.
But Daniel Field At the University of Cambridge, he says it wasn’t until 2022 that he and his colleagues realized the skull was so intact, they might have been able to scan it and create a 3D model of his brain.
High-resolution CT scanning allows paleontologists to peer inside the fossils “This involves careful ‘digital dissection’ – separating each component of the skull and then assembling it into a complete, undistorted three-dimensional reconstruction,” says Field.
“The new fossil provides unprecedented insight into the patterns and timing of how specialized brain features evolved in living birds.”
Based on the team’s brain reconstruction, Field says cognitive abilities and the ability to fly. Navaornis they were probably smaller than most living birds.
Artist’s impression of Navaornis hestiae
J. d’Oliveira
The parts of the brain responsible for complex cognition and spatial orientation are not as enlarged as those of modern birds, he says.
“In spite of his brain Navaornis it is much more widespread than the situation in a relatively more archaic bird Archeopteryx, it is not as widespread as what we see in living birds.’
The enlarged brains of modern birds support a wide range of complex behaviors, Field says, but understanding how their brains evolved has been difficult because the fossil bird skulls of early bird relatives are not well-formed and well-preserved.
“Navaornis It fills a 70-million-year gap in our understanding of how the distinctive brains of modern birds evolved.”
Topics:
