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This article was published 15/3/2016 (1648 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Hesperornis, a diving water fowl that lived 80 million years ago, seemed destined for extinction: it couldn't fly and many paleontologists believe it couldn't even walk.

But at least it had the courtesy to leave behind bones that fossilized so people around Morden could recapture its ancient history.

The Canadian Fossil Discovery Centre in Morden has added another line to its credits with the discovery of a new species of ancient water fowl, Hesperornis. This time the species was discovered by two outside researchers rummaging through the museum's collection of existing fossils. The fossils has been in the museum's storage shelves since the 1970s, said Victoria Markstrom, CFDC field and collection manager.

Researchers Kei-ichi Aotsuka and Tamaki Sato, from Japan, identified the CFDC's Hesperornis as a never before known species. They spent three summers sorting through the museum's collection. They have named it Hesperornis lumgairi, after landowner David Lumgair who kindly allowed people to dig on his property, near the hamlet of Thornhill, just west of Morden.

The Hesperornis was an ancient diving marine bird that lived in the Western Interior Seaway that cut through the length of North America, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico, 80 million years ago.

It grew up to a metre long, about the length of three ducks in a row. But it had no bones in its wings, only cartilage, so it couldn't fly. "They had stubby little wings on the side of their bodies that probably didn't do much," said Markstrom.

SUPPLIED Hesperornis lumgairi was named after 82-year-old Thornhill, Man., resident Mr. David Lumgair, on whose property the species fossil was found.

The wings possibly made them more streamlined for diving.

Its long legs, perhaps half the length of the legs of a modern-day heron, were webbed and used almost totally for propulsion in the water. "They couldn't really use their legs to stand up. There's a debate whether they could go on land or not. Then again, they had to lay eggs," said Markstrom.

"It kind of looked like a penguin with very long, robust legs," she said.

They had pointy, picket-fence teeth, but its bite was no match for deep sea predators.

Mosasaurs, marine monsters of the ancient deep, feasted on the Hesperornis. "We've pulled fossils of Hesperornis out of the stomachs of mosasaurs," said Markstrom.

What identifies the Hesperornis from other specimens of its genus is mainly the dimensions, she said.

The CFDC has fossils of over 1,000 specimens in storage. That includes fossils of over 100 bird specimens. That includes bone fragments, vertebrae, pieces of jaw, but mostly leg bones--femurs and tibiae--because they are the largest bones.

A fossilized Hesperornis is on display at the fossil museum. The CFDC houses Canada’s largest collection of marine reptile fossils.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca