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Europe’s last Mesozoic bird

Europe’s last Mesozoic bird
Europe’s last Mesozoic bird
Birds known from more than isolated skeletal elements are rare in the fossil record, especially from the European Mesozoic. This paucity has hindered interpretations of avian evolution immediately prior to, and in the aftermath of, the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event. We report on a specimen of a large ornithurine bird (closely related to Ichthyornis) from the uppermost Cretaceous (Maastricht Formation) of Belgium. This is the first record of a bird from these historic strata and the only phylogenetically informative ornithurine to be recovered from the Mesozoic of Europe. Because this new specimen was collected from 40 m below the K-T boundary (approximate age of 65.8 Ma), it is also the youngest non-neornithine (=non-modern) bird known from anywhere in the world
0028-1042
408-411
Dyke, Gareth J.
600ca61e-b40b-4c86-b8ae-13be4e331e94
Dortangs, Rudi W.
077d9f54-a423-4030-8dfd-6e3298e3b05a
Jagt, John W.
9acbb6c3-8545-4016-ba66-622e9702b0c5
Mulder, Eric W.
b00c876f-c4a8-4334-8763-1d5c24b27e2e
Schulp, Anne S.
4e05c440-19af-41ad-96aa-fca6c3e12631
Chiappe, Luis M.
e0daad1e-f962-48d2-8f94-84e1ab02896d
Dyke, Gareth J.
600ca61e-b40b-4c86-b8ae-13be4e331e94
Dortangs, Rudi W.
077d9f54-a423-4030-8dfd-6e3298e3b05a
Jagt, John W.
9acbb6c3-8545-4016-ba66-622e9702b0c5
Mulder, Eric W.
b00c876f-c4a8-4334-8763-1d5c24b27e2e
Schulp, Anne S.
4e05c440-19af-41ad-96aa-fca6c3e12631
Chiappe, Luis M.
e0daad1e-f962-48d2-8f94-84e1ab02896d

Dyke, Gareth J., Dortangs, Rudi W., Jagt, John W., Mulder, Eric W., Schulp, Anne S. and Chiappe, Luis M. (2002) Europe’s last Mesozoic bird. Naturwissenschaften, 89 (9), 408-411. (doi:10.1007/s00114-002-0352-9).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Birds known from more than isolated skeletal elements are rare in the fossil record, especially from the European Mesozoic. This paucity has hindered interpretations of avian evolution immediately prior to, and in the aftermath of, the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event. We report on a specimen of a large ornithurine bird (closely related to Ichthyornis) from the uppermost Cretaceous (Maastricht Formation) of Belgium. This is the first record of a bird from these historic strata and the only phylogenetically informative ornithurine to be recovered from the Mesozoic of Europe. Because this new specimen was collected from 40 m below the K-T boundary (approximate age of 65.8 Ma), it is also the youngest non-neornithine (=non-modern) bird known from anywhere in the world

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More information

Published date: September 2002
Organisations: Paleooceanography & Palaeoclimate

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 205295
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/205295
ISSN: 0028-1042
PURE UUID: d8314f41-8d71-44da-9a9a-ab174e768a01

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 08 Dec 2011 14:49
Last modified: 14 Mar 2024 04:34

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Contributors

Author: Gareth J. Dyke
Author: Rudi W. Dortangs
Author: John W. Jagt
Author: Eric W. Mulder
Author: Anne S. Schulp
Author: Luis M. Chiappe

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