Ancient Ostrich Relative Lived in North America 50 Million Years Ago
Posted on July 9, 2016
An ancient ostrich relative inhabited North America around 50 million years ago. The new species was identified from exceedingly well-preserved fossil specimens. The relative was not as big as modern day ostriches and was only about the size of a chicken.
The bird fossils were found more than a decade ago, completely intact with bones, feathers, and soft tissues in a former lake bed in Wyoming. The species was named Calciavis grandei in a paper co-authored by Sterling Nesbitt of Virginia Tech's College of Science. Calci means "hard/stone" and "avis" is from the Latin for bid. The "grandei" name comes from paleontologist Lance Grande who has studied the fossil fish from the same ancient North American lake for decades.
Nesbitt says in a statement, "This is among one of the earliest well-represented bird species after the age of large dinosaurs. The new bird shows us that the bird group that includes the largest flightless birds of today had a much wider distribution and longer evolutionary history in North America. Back when Calciavis was alive, it lived in a tropical environment that was rich with tropical life and this is in stark contrast to the high-desert environment in Wyoming today."
A research paper on the fossils was published here in the journal, The Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History.