Re: Baminornis zhenghensis

On 2/14/2025 10:57 AM, Kestrel Clayton wrote:

On 14-Feb-25 10:05, RonO wrote:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-discover- groundbreaking-jurassic-fossil-that-could-overhaul-the-evolutionary- history-of-birds-180986063/
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This fossil was discovered in 2023, and seems to have some features that make it more like modern birds than Archaeopteryx.  It is supposed to have lived around the same time as Archaeopteryx.  It looks like the bones that they have would make a shorter tail, but do they have all the tail bones.  It is difficult to tell from the pictures of the bones, but the bones that they do show do not have the fragmentary squashed fused tail like structure of modern birds.

 That's very interesting. Am I wrong for thinking this may imply the ancestry of early birds, much like early Homo, is a lot "bushier" than previously believed?
 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/chinese-fossil-jurassic-bird-rewrites-history-avian-evolution-rcna191980
This news article notes that it has been an issue for quite some time that no other bird like fossils have been identified that existed with early Archaeopteryx.  It sounds like everyone expected to find more species, but they just never have.
Ron Okimoto