Exploring the fascinating world of cretaceous birds
Lifestyle Newly discovered ancient birds from Late Cretaceous North America were hawk-sized and had powerful raptor-like feet, according to a study published October 9, 2024 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Alexander Clark of the University of Chicago, U.S. and colleagues.The most diverse birds during the Cretaceous Period were a now-extinct group called enantiornithines, known from all over the world during this time.However, enantiornithines and other Mesozoic birds are mainly known from Lower Cretaceous deposits, with a relatively poor record from the Late Cretaceous. Thus, there is a general lack of understanding of trends in bird evolution toward the end of the Mesozoic Era.In this study, Clark and colleagues describe three new enantiornithine birds from fossils found in the Hell Creek Formation of Montana, dating to the latest Cretaceous Period (68 – 66 million...
