Mother of all ducks

From: Davison Nick <N.A.P.Davison_at_greenwich.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 15:59:25 GMT


I thought that John Hughes would appreciate this from todays (London) Times.

Nick


Mother of all ducks shared a swamp with Tyrannosaurus rex

Primitive ducks may have lived alongside dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus rex, according to new research.

The fossil remains of a 70 million-year-old bird that appears to be an ancestor of modern ducks and geese have been discovered in Antarctica, showing conclusively that the relatives of modern birds lived alongside the dinosaurs.

While the first known bird, Archaeopteryx, lived 147 million years ago, it is commonly recognised to have been a "dead end" species whose descendants died out and did not give rise to modern birds.

The question of when today's birds started to evolve has long been the subject of scientific controversy. Some experts believe that they started to emerge alongside the dinosaurs of the late Cretaceous period, while others insist that bird evolution started only after the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

The discovery of a new species, Vegavis iaai, appears to settle the argument, as it has been conclusively dated to 70 million years ago -comfortably before dinosaurs died out.

Vegavis was found in 1992, but a new analysis of its bones has established it as a distinct species and established its date.

It takes its name from Vega Island in Antarctica, where it was unearthed, the Latin word avis meaning bird, and from the IAA -the Argentine Antarctic Institute, which sponsored the expedition on which it was found. Details of the species are published today in the journal Nature.

Julia Clarke, of North Carolina State University, who led the research team, said that Vegavis belonged to the waterfowl family and was "most closely related to Anatidae, which includes true ducks".

That this species lived in the Cretaceous period implied that other ancestors of modern birds, including chickens, had evolved before the dinosaurs died out.

"Hypotheses implying a causal relationship between the extinction of non-avian dinosaurs and diversification of basal avian lineages must address these new data," the scientists said.

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