Benjamin Stern
1/7/13
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/01/130107082602.htm
Summary: Darwin's finches showed clear adaptation by beak type, reflecting different food sources. Birds that live in modern times have beaks to chew up their food, but a new fossil has recently been discovered that possesses specialized teeth to manipulate its food, suggesting it had a durophagous diet, which means that the species was capable of eating prey with tough exoskeletons. This is a new type of diversity within birds previously unknown by researchers. The species of birds, called Sulcavis Geeorum lived roughly 125 million years ago near China, meaning it lived in the Cretaceous period among dinosaurs. This species likely evolved from early dinosaurs, but later died out. It is unclear why this relatively advanced species of birds died out, but it likely had to do with changes in food sources. No other birds possessed any dental ornamentations, yet this species had many; preserved ridges, stritations, and serrated edges.
Connection: This clearly connects to evolution, the bird species evolved complex traits to adapt to better survive. Their adaptations, specialized teeth, enabled them to eat animals they wouldn't normally be able to chew. More specifically, this is an example of evolution extremely similar to Darwin's finches. Both involved populations of birds that evolved to be able to eat specific foods.
What types of organisms did this bird species eat?
ReplyDeleteNot enough information is known to determine their exact diet, but it was likely small to moderate size boney animals similar to modern day rodents, squirrels and rabbits
ReplyDelete