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Another gap filled. Good find.
"Gansus likely behaved much like its modern relatives..." It's possible that's because they were created, not evolved? ;-)
Excellent research.
"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."
"helps fill in the big gap"
ok
1) then in laymans terms, is this an example of fossil record of intermediate speciation?
2) is there any indication of what happened to the heads?
"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."
apparently, these fossils were fragments, and were assembled by the authors...
3) are you satisified with their conclusions?
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.
And then there's the little problem of not actually having the bird's head.
If it looks like a duck and it quacks like a duck...well...you know.
If they can get a duck to do that, there truly is nothing the ToE cannot explain.
show that early birds “likely” evolved in an aquatic environment,
Their findings “suggest”
"Gansus is “very close” to a modern bird and “helps fill” in the big gap
“although every specimen lacked a skull.” “We won't have a definitive dietary” answer until we find a skull."
"It appears “
Gansus “likely behaved “
Gansus “appears” to have had adaptations
“What remains a mystery for now,”
IS HOW ANYBODY CAN BELIEVE THIS MESS
Nice piece, thanks.
I find the evolution of birds and the history of scientific opinion behind it, to be quite interesting.
My first thought: But did it Get the WormTM?
Cheers!
another one here
(but i cannot get the source to transmit the photo)
http://www.geotimes.org/current/WebExtra061506.html
interesting that these photos show the almost entire skeleton....together, not scattered (as i had conjectured)...
I saw this in the paper and I was doing real great until I saw that it was about the size of a robin and the whole picture collapsed.