2023-09-06 23:38:11
Life reconstruction of the bird-like Fujianvenator prodigiosus dinosaur that lived between 148 and 150 million years ago in China (Chuang Zhao/REUTERS)
Avian dinosaurs are the origin of the birds we see today, but how this evolution developed has been a puzzle to paleontologists due to the lack of fossils. Now, the discovery of an avian theropod from 150 million years ago changes things.
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The details of the new fossil, analyzed by a team of researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the Fujian Institute of Geological Survey (FIGS), are described Wednesday in an article in Nature magazine.
The fossil, a new 150-million-year-old avian theropod, was found in Zhenghe county, Fujian province.
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The new species, named ‘Fujianvenator prodigiosus’, presents a strange set of morphological characteristics and traits that it shares with other avian theropods, troodontids and dromaeosaurs, demonstrating how far the evolutionary mosaic extends in the early evolution of birds.
Birds descended from Late Jurassic theropod dinosaurs, but little is known regarding the earliest evolution of the Avialae (the encompassing clade or ancestor of all modern birds) because of the paucity of fossils.
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Until now, only avian dinosaur remains from the Middle-Late Jurassic (166-159 million years ago) have been found in Northeast China and known as the Yanliao Biota and in the German Solnhofen limestones (Archaeopteryx remains somewhat older). recent), but there was a gap of regarding 30 million years to the earliest known record of Cretaceous birds.
This fossil gap has prevented paleontologists from fully studying Jurassic avians, which not only hold the key to deciphering the evolutionary origin of these dinosaurs, but are essential to clarifying the phylogenetic controversy over the origin of birds.
“Our comparative analyzes show that there were marked changes in the body plan along the early avian line, largely driven by the forelimb, eventually giving rise to the typical avian limb ratio,” he detailed in the article. Wang Min of the IVPP, lead author of the study.
“However, Fujianvenator is a rare species that diverged from this main trajectory and evolved into a strange hindlimb architecture,” he added.
The strikingly elongated lower leg and other morphological features, in combination with other geological observations, suggest that Fujianvenator lived in a swampy environment and was a high-speed runner or long-legged wader, traits hitherto completely unknown to early avians.
“In addition to Fujianvenator, we have found other vertebrates in abundance, such as teleosts, testudines and choristoderes,” confirmed Xu Liming of FIGS, lead author of the study.
The new species, dubbed ‘Fujianvenator prodigiosus’, features a strange set of morphologies that it shares with other avians, troodontids and dromaeosaurs, demonstrating the impact of evolutionary mosaicism on early bird evolution (Credit: Nature)
During the Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous, southeast China underwent intense tectonic activity due to subduction of the paleopacific plate, resulting in widespread magmatism and coeval fault-trough basins, where the Fujianvenator was found.
This geological background is essentially the same as in the Late Jurassic of north and northeast China, where the oldest Yanliao Biota is preserved.
“The extraordinary diversity, the unique composition of the vertebrates and the paleoenvironment clearly indicate that this locality documents a terrestrial fauna, which we have given the name Zhenghe Fauna,” explained Zhou Zhonghe of the IVPP, a co-author of the study.
According to radioisotopic dating and stratigraphic studies, the Zhenghe fauna belongs to the period between 150 and 148 million years ago, therefore Fujianvenator is one of the stratigraphically youngest and geographically most southern members of the Jurassic avians.
The discovery of the Zhenghe Fauna opens a new window into the planet’s Late Jurassic terrestrial ecosystem, and the joint IVPP-FIGS research team plans to continue its exploration of Zhenghe and nearby areas.
(With information from EFE)
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