Fossil ‘overturns more than a century of knowledge’ about evolution of birds

Emus and Ostriches ‘evolved backwards’ to achieve rigid beaks, scientists say

Artist’s reconstruction of the last known toothed bird, Janavis finalidens, in its original environment (Phillip Krzeminski)

A re-analysis of a 66.7 million-year-old fossilised bird skeleton found on the Dutch-Belgian border in the 1990s has “upended” one of the core assumptions about the evolution of modern birds.

Until now it was thought that modern birds’ mobile, dextrous beaks – which they can move independently from their heads – evolved more recently, with birds such as ostriches and emus, who have fixed upper mandibles, emerging first.

However, a new study of the fossil reveals that mobile beaks had already evolved before the mass extinction event that wiped out dinosaurs.