The Early Bird: Fossils Depict Aquatic Origins of Near-Modern Birds 115 Million Years Ago

University of Pennsylvania ^ | 15 June 2006 | Staff

[PatrickHenry]

Five fossil specimens of a near-modern bird found in the Gansu Province of northwestern China show that early birds likely evolved in an aquatic environment, according to a study reported today in the journal Science. Their findings suggest that these early modern birds were much like the ducks or loons found today. Gansus yumenesis, which lived some 105 to 115 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period, took modern birds through a watery path out of the dinosaur lineage.

The report was co-authored by Peter Dodson of the University of Pennsylvania and his former students Hai-lu You of the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences, Jerald Harris of Dixie State College of Utah and Matthew Lamanna of Carnegie Natural History Museum in Pittsburgh.

"Gansus is very close to a modern bird and helps fill in the big gap between clearly non-modern birds and the explosion of early birds that marked the Cretaceous period, the final era of the Dinosaur Age," said Peter Dodson, professor of anatomy at Penns School of Veterinary Medicine and professor in Penns Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. "Gansus is the oldest example of the nearly modern birds that branched off of the trunk of the family tree that began with the famous proto-bird Archaeopteryx."

Gansus yumenensis takes its name from the Gansu region, where it was found, and the nearby city of Yumen. According to Dodson, Gansus is something of a lost species, originally described from a fossil leg found in 1983, but since largely ignored by science. The five specimens described by Dodson and his colleagues had many of the anatomical traits of modern birds, including feathers, bone structure and webbed feet, although every specimen lacked a skull.

"It appears that the early ancestors of modern birds lived lifestyles that today we would stereotype as being duck-like, heron-like, stork-like, loon-like, etc.," said Jerald Harris, director of paleontology at Dixie Sate College of Utah. "Gansus likely behaved much like its modern relatives, probably eating fish, insects and the occasional plan. We won't have a definitive dietary answer until we find a skull."

The skeletons, headless as they are, offer plenty of evidence for a life on the water. Its upper body structure offers evidence that Gansus could take flight from the water, like a modern duck, and the webbed feet and bony knees are clear signs that Gansus swam.

"Webbed feet is an adaptation that has evolved repeatedly in widely separate groups of animals, such as sea turtles, whales and manatees, and would only hinder climbing or landing in trees," Harris said. "The big bony crest that sticks off the knee-end of their lower leg bones are similar to structures seen in loons and grebes. These crests anchor powerful muscles needed for diving under water and swimming."

According to Harris, these adaptations all demonstrate how the Gansus branch of the family tree, the structurally modern birds called ornithuromorphs, split from the enantiornitheans (or "opposite birds"). Enantiornitheans were among the feathered fossils found in northeastern China during the 1990s.

"The enantiornitheans had the best adaptations for perching, so they were able to dominate the ecological niche that we would associate with songbirds, cuckoos, woodpeckers or birds of prey," Harris said. "Gansus appears to have had adaptations for a lifestyle centered around water, based on things like the proportions of the leg and foot bones."

While the enantiornitheans are now long gone, their perching lifestyle has now been taken over by the descendents of birds like Gansus. What remains a mystery for now, according to the researchers, is how the amphibious lifestyle of birds like Gansus helped enable them to survive the cataclysmic end of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

Funding was provided by the Discovery Channel (Quest program) and the Science Channel, the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Dixie State College, the Chinese Geological Survey of the Ministry of Land and Resources of China and the Gansu Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources.

[VadeRetro]

Interesting. Hope they find one with the head. I'd also be curious to know if they got a sternum and how big it was.

[CharlesWayneCT]

Or, to be more pointed, it is clear that they assume there should be skulls, and are therefore surprised not to find them. And skulls are kind of unique bone structures that you couldn't easily confuse for other things.

So, given they must have worked really hard to find the skull bones that they were certain would be there, why don't you see that, for bones that are easily mistaken, they would have "found" the bones to be exactly what they were looking for them to be?

You will find what you are looking for. When you know what the results are you need, there are many examples of otherwise good scientists who manage to FIND those results, whether they are correct or not. Just human nature.

Maybe the early human hunters collected their heads.

Oh wait, there couldn't be humans there, this is before "65 million years ago" when we all KNOW that a cataclysmic event made all those pesky creatures we can't explain disappear.

I loved how they brought that back in with their "we just don't know yet" how these early ducks managed to survive that event to evolve into modern ducks.

Maybe Noahzoa put them on his ark.

[MeanWestTexan]

Being a theistic evolutionist (i.e., God created all; chose to use evolution), happy to note that Genesis goes water to birds.

Genesis 20-25 or so.

[b_sharp]

"So they find a 115 million-year-old duck, and that somehow fills a gap? We have ducks now, with the same features they found in this fossil. The entire article gave no reason why we should think this bird was any different other than in size from modern birds, and they even call it a "near-modern" bird.

'Near modern' means there are differences between avian diagnostic traits between the two. They were not modern birds but had fewer differences in those traits than a number of other transitional fossils.

"And then there's the little problem of not actually having the bird's head.

Why is that a problem? It would have to be very like a bird's head because of the limitations the bird morphology creates. We have many fossils that span the dino to bird transition and none of them have a fish, amphibian or mammal heads so expecting this fossil to have a bird (or very bird like) head seems quite reasonable.

[kralcmot]

my opinion is

i think evolution is a interesting theory that has not been proven

i would like some fossil evidence of intermediate speciation

i do not think this research will provide that

[js1138]

Another gap filled. Good find.

Two more gaps.

[KMJames]

If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...well...you know.

[PatrickHenry]

i would like some fossil evidence of intermediate speciation[.] i do not think this research will provide that

29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. Yes, macro-evolution.
Ichneumon's legendary post 52. More evidence than you can handle.
Post 661: Ichneumon's stunning post on transitionals.
Plagiarized Errors and Molecular Genetics. Anatomic similarities are confirmed by DNA similarities and copying errors.
Evidence of Evolutionary Transitions. There really is evidence out there.
Macroevolution: Evidence. Great info & links from the U. of Illinois website.
Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ. Yes, transitional fossils exist.
8,000+ papers on vertabrate evolution. National Academy of Sciences.
One gene produces major changes in stickleback fish. Stunning example of evolution.
Fossil whale with legs. Land animal to whale transitional fossil.
NEW Newly found species fills evolutionary gap between fish and land animals. Another transitional fossil.
[Dead link?] Feathered Dinosaurs.
Archaeopteryx. Reptile-to-bird transitional fossil.
Archaeopteryx: FAQS . A true transitional fossil
All About Archaeopteryx .

From: The List-O-Links.
Another service of Darwin Central, the conspiracy that cares.

[KMJames]

..."Gansus is very close to a modern bird and helps fill in the big gap between clearly non-modern birds and the explosion of early birds that marked the Cretaceous period...

If they can get a duck to do that, there truly is nothing the ToE cannot explain.

[furball4paws]

"You will find what you are looking for. When you know what the results are you need, there are many examples of otherwise good scientists who manage to FIND those results, whether they are correct or not. Just human nature."

"In order to obtain a certain result, You must want to obtain precisely that result; if you want to obtain a certain result, you will obtain it .... I need only such people as will obtain the results I need". Trofim Lysenko

Nice to see where you learned your Science. Want to give us some examples of "otherwise good scientists" you mention above?

[31R1O]

Greetings, can you add me to your ping list. Please and Thank you!

[ASA Vet]

Patricks list is multichanneling.

[VadeRetro]

i would like some fossil evidence of intermediate speciation

I doubt you will. That said:

Whales.

Note that the chart on the above page has clickable links. It's a site map and a phylogeny chart.

"350 million year old 'Fish' had a Pelvis."

Tiktaalik, a not-yet-amphibian getting really close 375 million years ago.

Ring species example.

Incipient bird characters in a dinosaur.

The halfway thing.

One small compilation. Illustration excerpted below:

Hundreds of vertebrate examples.

In this post, Ichneumon demonstrates fish-to-elephant in 50 steps of "microevolution" using the previous link as a resource.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1033396/posts?page=442#442

[VadeRetro]

Well, no problem with saying it.

Yours is bigger.

[b_sharp]

"Or, to be more pointed, it is clear that they assume there should be skulls, and are therefore surprised not to find them. And skulls are kind of unique bone structures that you couldn't easily confuse for other things.

How many organisms that have wings and feathers but no heads do you know?

"So, given they must have worked really hard to find the skull bones that they were certain would be there, why don't you see that, for bones that are easily mistaken, they would have "found" the bones to be exactly what they were looking for them to be?

Which bones would that be? I see nowhere in the news blurb that out of 5 specimens only a few hard to identify (or easily mistaken) bones were found.

"You will find what you are looking for. When you know what the results are you need, there are many examples of otherwise good scientists who manage to FIND those results, whether they are correct or not. Just human nature.

Then again many finds are completely by accident and many that are found where expected to be found are unmistakable.

"Maybe the early human hunters collected their heads.

"Oh wait, there couldn't be humans there, this is before "65 million years ago" when we all KNOW that a cataclysmic event made all those pesky creatures we can't explain disappear.

That cataclysmic event, one of many such events, did not kill off all species. Both birds and mammals faired much better than the reptiles.

"I loved how they brought that back in with their "we just don't know yet" how these early ducks managed to survive that event to evolve into modern ducks.

How is not knowing how the event happened equivalent to not knowing that it happened?

"Maybe Noahzoa put them on his ark.

Who?

[colorado tanker]

Aquatic birds, eh? Hmmm. Wonder if they were good to eat?

[Robert A Cook PE]

Well of course!

Genesis says that dinosaurs (well birds at least, but science finally determined birds came from dinosaurs) and sea creatures were created well before He got around to makin' us mammal-type critters.

(I just can't figger out out them there old illiterate Israeli sheepherders got this modern-science type information right when they spent 40 years wandering in the desert. For a short 2 week trip from Egypt to Israel......)

[Oztrich Boy]

Another gap filled. Good find.

Two more gaps found in fossil record. Darwinism in trouble

[Gumlegs]

Wonder if they were good to eat?

Maybe just the heads?

[Coyoteman]

they spent 40 years wandering in the desert. For a short 2 week trip from Egypt to Israel......)

Moses refused to stop and ask for directions?