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Mar 18, 2020

‘Wonderchicken’ fossil from the age of dinosaurs reveals origin of modern birds

Posted by in categories: asteroid/comet impacts, existential risks

The oldest fossil of a modern bird yet found, dating from the age of dinosaurs, has been identified by an international team of palaeontologists.

The spectacular fossil, affectionately nicknamed the ‘Wonderchicken’, includes a nearly complete , hidden inside nondescript pieces of rock, and dates from less than one million years before the asteroid impact which eliminated all large dinosaurs.

Writing in the journal Nature, the team, led by the University of Cambridge, believe the new fossil helps clarify why survived the mass extinction event at the end of the Cretaceous period, while the giant dinosaurs did not.

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