Archaeornithura meemannae is at least 130 million years old and was found with its feathers preserved, allowing comparison with modern-day birds

Researchers have stumbled upon the oldest known ancestor of all modern birds after breaking open a lump of ancient rock near a town in north-eastern China.

They discovered the fossilised remains of the prehistoric bird, complete with exquisitely preserved plumage, in silt rock that formed 130 million years ago in the region.



The age of the specimen pushes back the origins of the evolutionary branch that led to living birds by at least five million years, and suggests that different bird groups had already become established in the early Cretaceous.



The new species, named Archaeornithura meemannae, was the size of a sparrow and sported a feathery head crest, a fan-shaped tail and overlapping feathers that were shaped to generate lift when the bird spread its wings. On the leading edge of each was a tuft of feathers called the alula, or bastard wing, which lives on in modern birds, such as kestrels.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The bird’s plumage was well preserved. Clockwise from far left: left wing; right wing; (c) covert feathers over the skull and neck and alular feathers on the left alular digit. Photograph: Wang et al., Nature Communications

Min Wang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences said the remains of two of the birds were found by colleagues during an excavation at the Sichakou basin in Fengning county, Hebei province. “They used a hammer to crack open some rock and found some bones inside. We brought them, and the other parts of the rock, back to the museum to study,” he said. The analysis was done at Tianyu Natural History Museum of Shandong.



Early bird called Dawn beat Archaeopteryx to worm by 10m years Read more

“All living birds belong to a group called the ornithuromorpha, and until now the oldest species known was 125 million years old. This new species comes from deposits that are more than 130 million years old, so it pushes back that date by at least 5 million years,” Wang told the Guardian.



“The feathers are really beautiful. It is incredible how they were preserved so well for 130 million years,” he added. Details of the discovery are reported in the journal Nature Communications.



The birds’ legs resemble those of modern-day waders, leading the researchers to suspect that it fed along lake shores. It probably ate plants and may have swallowed grit and small stones to help grind down seeds and other tough material.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest The complete fossilised remains, found when a lump of rock was split open by researchers. Photograph: Wang et al., Nature Communications

The new species is about 10 million years younger than Archaeopteryx, an extremely primitive creature that is not thought to have any direct descendents living today. The fossilised remains of Archaeopteryx have left academics stumped over whether they are looking at a dinosaur-like bird or a bird-like dinosaur.



“This finding is important because it comes from such old rocks and the species is already quite advanced in its group,” said Gareth Dyke, a paleontologist at the University of Southampton. “It suggests that in the early Cretaceous, all the major groups of birds had already evolved and diversified.”



Though recent discoveries have revealed that plenty of dinosaurs had feathers for warmth, or to boost their sex appeal, the feathers on the Archaeornithura were for flying. “You can see the shape of the feathers on the wing. They have a cambered shape like an aircraft wing, and that is to generate lift,” Dyke said.

