A fossilized Jeholornis provides the first evidence of leaf-eating birds, revealing their early ties to flowering plants over 100 million years ago.
New findings from the analysis of a 120-million-year-old fossil skeleton of the extinct bird Jeholornis, unearthed from northeastern China, present the earliest known evidence of leaf-eating birds, marking the earliest known evolution of arboreal plant-eating among birds.
The pheasant-sized Jeholornis, a member of the second most primitive lineage of known birds, has teeth and a long bony tail like its predatory, feathered dinosaur relatives. However, microscopic analysis of the fossilized residues in the stomach of this juvenile, arboreal (tree-living) bird demonstrates that Jeholornis was not a predator. It had eaten tree leaves from a group of flowering plants called magnoliids that includes the living magnolia, cinnamon, and avocado trees...
The presence of gizzard stones (gastroliths) used to grind plant parts during digestion in the stomach areas of fossil skeletons allow paleontologists to determine that the diets of some early birds included plant parts. More direct evidence of plants in the diet of the earliest lineages of birds comes from other fossil skeletons of Jeholornis with fossilized fruit and seeds preserved in their digestive system.
The 120-million-year-old fossil skeleton with feathers of the juvenile early bird Jeholornis from China, showing some microscopic fossil phytolith remains of its last meal of leaves from magnoliid trees that were extracted from the remains of the bird’s stomach, in comparison with phytoliths from living magnoliid trees.Credit: IVPP
