New Fossil is the Oldest Bird Relative Ever Found

A tiny skull, dated to the era of the dinosaurs, is giving scientists a rare glimpse into how ancestors of modern birds evolved.

By Leslie Nemo
Mar 18, 2020 8:43 PM
Oldest Bird Asteriornis Art - Phillip Krzeminski
An artist’s reconstruction of the world’s oldest modern bird, Asteriornis maastrichtensis, which lived nearly 67 million years ago — meaning it lived alongside dinosaurs. (Credit: Phillip Krzeminski)

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Daniel Field wasn’t expecting to see much when he put a broken rock in a CT scanner. The University of Cambridge paleontologist and his student, Juan Benito, were looking at a donation to the Natural History Museum of Maastricht, the Netherlands, which appeared to have some prehistoric bird leg bones sticking out of it. 

CT scans are a matter of course in this kind of research, Field says. The technology uses X-rays to outline 3D versions of whatever is inside scanned objects — and, in paleontology, lets researchers see through stone. When the team scanned the rock, they hoped the data would reveal more information about the limb bones.

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