Earliest Bird Ancestor Found

A 150 million-year-old fossil found in China's Liaoning Province and left unidentified in a local museum has been classified as the earliest known bird ancestor (Aurornis xui), with implications that flight evolved in dinosaurs only once in the lineage leading to modern birds.

Earliest Iridescent Dinosaurs

Four-winged feathered dinosaurs called microraptors that lived 125 million years ago have been found to possess the earliest evidence of iridescence in their feathers, with fossil melanosomes comparable to modern birds with an iridescent sheen.

Feather Evolution in Amber

Analysis of prehistoric feathers trapped in 80-million-year-old Canadian amber deposits have provided the most comprehensive details about the evolution of feathers in dinosaurs and birds yet known.

Archaeopteryx Not First Bird

A newly discovered fossil from China of a small deinonychosaur (Xiaotingia zhengi) shares many anatomical features with Archaeopteryx, challenging the older fossil's classification as the iconic "first bird" and common ancestor of all modern birds.

Giant Stork Fossils

Fossil remains of a giant marabou stork (Leptoptilos robustus) that once stood 1.8-m tall have been discovered on the Indonesian island of Flores, the latest in a series of extreme-sized animals native to that island including dwarf elephants, giant rats and a species of "hobbit-like" hominids.

Giant Fossil Bird Found

An "exceptionally preserved" fossil skeleton more than 70% complete of a giant toothed bird (Pelagornis chilensis) has been found in Chile, with its 17-foot wingspan making it one of the largest flying birds to have ever lived.

Prehistoric Birds Jabbed at Prey

A new engineering analysis on the skull of the flightless prehistoric bird Andalgalornis shows that it killed its prey with strong, hatchet-like jabs, as their skulls and beaks were well-adapted to striking forward but subject to strain in side-to-side motions.

Dinosaur Feather Varieties

New fossils found in China of Similicaudipteryx, an oviraptorosaur believed to be an ancestor of modern birds, reveal dramatic changes in feather types and shapes as the animal matured unlike anything known in modern bird species.

Birds' Ancestry Challenged

A new study provides further evidence that although modern birds share a common ancestor with theropods, they are not direct evolutionary descendants of those dinosaurs but developed separately along their own path.

Earliest Feathered Dinosaurs

New fossils found in northwestern China and in remarkably good condition reveal feathered dinosaurs some 10 million years older than Archaeopteryx, further affirming the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Extinct Man-Eating Eagle

New sophisticated scans of fossil remains of the Haast's eagle of New Zealand reveal it was an active predator instead of a scavenger, large and strong enough to possibly hunt human children.

Iridescence in Prehistoric Birds

Paleontologists have found evidence of nanostructures responsible for vivid colorful iridescence in 40-million-year-old bird feather fossils.