ilO-Lucftf Famine, Saturday, Octobtr 18,1986
POST, Texas Brilliantly
colored winged creatures the size
of crows, with teeth in their beaks
and long, bony tails, might have
adorned the skies over this area
225 million years ago.
Evidence of their existence has
been uncovered recently in the
form of fossil bones excavated
from a mudstone quarry near
Post, a town in western Texas.
Found by a team of scientists led
Paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee excavates a Texas site for
fossils dating from about 225 million years ago. Among his
finds have been evidence of the world's oldest birds as well as
dinosaur-like creatures and mammal-like reptiles.
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Prehistoric Creature Believed To Be World's Oldest Bird
by Sankar Chatterjee, a paleon
tologist from Texas Tech
University, the fossils may shed
new light on the early origin and
diversity of birds.
Chatterjee says the bones
belonged to the world’s oldest
birds, a new genus that he plans to
name Protoavis, or ancestral bird.
The scientists found fossils of at
least two birds, an adult and a
smaller juvenile.
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Birdlike Features
The fossils include hollow bones,
a wishbone, a breastbone with a
keel, a skull with avian features
such as wide eye sockets, and a
large brain case. Although feather
impressions weren’t found with the
Texas fossils, a forearm and hand
show a series of nodes or bumps to
which feathers were attached,
says Chatterjee.
“The Protoavis bones are at
least 75 million years older and
more birdlike than Archaeopteryx,
heretofore considered the earliest
forerunner of today’s birds,” he
says.
Discovered in a limestone
quarry in Bavaria, Germany, in
1861, Archaeopteryx’s skelton,
embedded in a stone slab, showed
a strange, partly feathered
creature with the characteristics
of both bird and reptile.
Archaeopteryx had the type of
large wishbone that aids powered
flight, but it might have lacked the
hollow bones and keel-like
breastbone that enable birds to
soar through the sky. Powerful
wing beats, making sustained
flight possible, depend on two sets
of muscles attached to the deep
keel of the breastbone.
Found just two years after the
publication of Charles Darwin’s
"On the Origin of Species by
Means of Natural Selection,”
Archaeopteryx was hailed as the
missing link between reptiles and
birds and became one of the crown
jewels of paleontology.
It has inspired countless
scientific meetings and papers and
has often been the center of con
troversy because of its strange
mixture of avian and reptilian
features.
Both Archaeopteryx and
Chatterjee’s Protoavis have a
pelvis and hind legs that resemble
those of a small dinosaur. The
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Artist's drawing shows recovered fossil bones (dark areas)
of what is described as the world’s oldest bird, which
paleontologist Sanker Chatterjee will name Protoavis.
strong hind legs enabled
creatures to run as well as fly.
Dinosaur Ancestors
Most scientists trace the an
cestry of birds to a small, meat
eating, fast-running dinosaur.
Protoavis strengthens the
evolutionary relationship between
dinosaurs and birds, Chatterjee
Says. Like Archaeopteryx,
Protoavis had other prominent
reptilian features such as clawed
fingers, a tail, and teeth. Modern
birds are toothless.
But, Chatterjee maintains,
“There’s a big difference between
the two early birds. Protoavis
displays more birdlike bones and
'\
already has lost the teeth in the
back part of its jaw, indicating that
it was more advanced than Ar
chaeolpteryx. This will lend
support to those who feel that
Archaeopteryx was already on a
side branch of avian evolution in
the Upper Jurassic period some 75
million years later.”
Teeth and the strong jaws
necessary to support them are
heavy, and evolving birds needed
reduced weight for efficient flying.
Chatterjee contends that
Protoavis, although not a long
distance flier, could easily have
flown from tree to tree and
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