Fossil of Sparrow-Sized Bird Offers Biting Insight

Chinese and American scientists have discovered the fossil of an unusual 125-million-year-old bird.

“This bird is totally unique,” said paleontologist Luis M. Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County.

“There is no creature in the avian world or the dinosaur world like this one.”

The most distinguishing feature of the sparrow-sized fossil found in the northeastern corner of China is its long, thin beak, like that of a sandpiper. Unlike the sandpiper’s beak, however, this one has 10 very sharp teeth right at the end.

“Many primitive birds had teeth,” Chiappe said, “but they usually extended throughout the mouth.”

“In this case, they are limited to the very end of the snout.”

The bird, which the team named Longirostravis hani, probably lived near a lake shore, probing the mud for insects, crustaceans and worms.

The teeth on the end of its beak would have helped it pull its prey to the surface.

Longirostravis means bird with a long rostrum, or beak.

The fossil’s discovery was reported in the biology journal Naturwissenschaften by Chiappe and colleagues from USC, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Capital Normal University in Beijing.