Early cretaceous birds with crops found in China
Tuesday, September 6, 2011 - 04:30
in Paleontology & Archaeology
The crop is characteristic of seed-eating birds today, yet little is known about its early history despite remarkable discoveries of many Mesozoic seed-eating birds in the past decade. Scientists from Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, Tianyu Museum of Nature in Shandong Province, China, and University of Kansas reported the discovery of some early fossil evidence for the presence of a crop in birds in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online today. Two Early Cretaceous birds, the basal ornithurine Hongshanornis and a basal avian Sapeornis, demonstrate that an essentially modern avian digestive system formed early in avian evolution.