Confuciusornis shifan

  • IASbaba
  • January 4, 2023
  • 0
Environment & Ecology
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Context: Recently, paleontologists have announced the discovery of a fossil beaked bird ancestor in Northeastern China.

  • The nearly complete fossil is of a beaked bird that lived in what is now China during the Early Cretaceous epoch, some 119 million years ago.

About Confuciusornis shifan:

  • Confuciusornis is a genus of extinct raven-billed bird in the family Confuciusornithidae.
  • Confuciusornithidae is a clade of Early Cretaceous pygostylian birds known from the Jehol Biota of East Asia.
  • It weighed less than 200 grams and was smaller than most other confuciusornithid species.
  • It represents the earliest known toothless, beaked birds.
  • It is different from other Mesozoic birds due to the presence of an additional cushion-like bone in the first digit of the wing.
  • This feature is significant as it may have helped the bird meet the functional demand of flight at a stage when the skeletal growth was still incomplete.

Source:  Sci.news

Previous Year Question

Q.1) Which of the following is not a bird? (2022)

  1. Golden Mahseer
  2. Indian Nightjar
  3. Spoonbill
  4. White Ibis

 

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