In China A strange animal with the body of a bird and the head of a dinosaur was discovered living about 120 million years ago and named by scientists Cratonavis zhui. Behind the revelation is a team of scholars from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Cas), coordinated by Zhou Zhonghe. The study was later published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. Paleontologists scanned the fossil with a high-resolution computed tomography scanner and found that the skull of the head is almost identical to that of the skull Tyrannosaurus. «The features of the skull – explained the doctor Zhiheng Li, among the main authors of the work – show that most of the birds lived in the chalkincluding Cratonavis zuhi, was unable to move the upper beak independently of the brain and lower jaw, which modern birds can instead, and which represents one of the most peculiar features of their ecological diversity» .
ZHAO CHUANG / Fossil found in China, January 6, 2023
What also struck the scientists was the fact that this “dino bird” had one shoulder blade it is the first metatarsal stretch. What modern birds don’t have them? And according to the authors of the study, it could be because of that evolutionary step transitioned from dinosaurs to birds, which was necessary to compensate for the other characteristics of this ancient animal, which possessed a very poor physique for flight. “The scapula is functionally necessary for bird flight and provides stability and mobility,” explains the scientist Wang Minwho participated in the study. “The scapula may increase the muscle’s mechanical advantage for rotation of the humerus, compensating for the overall underdeveloped flight apparatus of this early bird, and these differences represent morphological experiments in flight behavior in the early stages of avian diversification,” he concluded.
Which branch was it in?
ZHAO CHUANG / Fossil found in China, January 6, 2023
Given the characteristics, this Cratonavis was positioned halfway between the dinosaurs Archeopteryx long-tailed and reptilian, and the Ornithothoraceswhich instead exhibited other characteristics of modern birds.
Cover video by Ifl Science
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