The skeleton of Navaornis hestiae, an 80-million-year-old chicken fossil
S. Abramowicz/Dinosaur Institute/Pure Historical past Museum of Los Angeles County
An 80-million-year-old fossil chicken has been found with a cranium so exquisitely preserved that scientists have been in a position to research the detailed construction of its mind.
In each age and evolutionary improvement, the brand new species, named Navaornis hestiae, is sort of halfway between the earliest identified bird-like dinosaur, Archaeopteryx, which lived 150 million years in the past, and fashionable birds. It lived within the Cretaceous Interval alongside dinosaurs equivalent to Tyrannosaurus and Triceratops.
The fossil, which bears a superficial resemblance to a starling, was discovered close to Presidente Prudente, Brazil, in 2016 and was instantly recognised as vital due to the rarity of a full chicken skeleton, notably one in all that age.
However Daniel Area on the College of Cambridge says it wasn’t till 2022 that he and his colleagues realised the cranium was so intact that they may probably scan it and create a 3D mannequin of its mind.
Excessive-resolution CT scanning permits palaeontologists to see inside fossils. “This involves careful ‘digital dissection’: separating out each individual component of the skull and then reassembling them into a complete, undeformed three-dimensional reconstruction,” says Area.
“The new fossil provides unprecedented insight into the pattern and timing by which the specialised features of the brain of living birds evolved.”
Based mostly on the crew’s reconstruction of the mind, Area says the cognitive skills and flying capability of Navaornis have been in all probability inferior to these of most dwelling birds.
Artist’s impression of Navaornis hestiae
J. d’Oliveira
The parts of the mind answerable for complicated cognition and spatial orientation aren’t as enlarged as these of recent birds, he says.
“Although the cerebrum of Navaornis is greatly expanded relative to the condition in a more archaic bird relative like Archaeopteryx, it is not as expanded as what we see in living birds.”
The enlarged brains of recent birds help an enormous vary of complicated behaviours, says Area, however understanding how their brains advanced has been difficult on account of a scarcity of adequately full and well-preserved fossil chicken skulls from early chicken family members.
“Navaornis fills a roughly 70-million-year-long gap in our understanding of how the distinctive brains of modern birds evolved.”
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