Scientists have revealed the African origins of New Zealand's most mysterious giant flightless bird – the now extinct adzebill – showing that some of its closest living relatives are the pint-sized flufftails from Madagascar ...
Plants & Animals
Feb 21, 2019
0
63
Most of the birds you've ever seen—sparrows, finches, robins, crows—have one crucial thing in common: they're all what scientists refer to as perching birds, or "passerines." The passerines make up about 6,500 of the ...
Archaeology
Feb 7, 2019
3
440
For the first time, research has uncovered the origins of the earliest domestic turkeys in ancient Mexico. The study also suggests turkeys weren't only prized for their meat—with demand for the birds soaring with the Mayans ...
Archaeology
Jan 17, 2018
3
107
On a small island off the coast of Iceland, 173 years ago, a sequence of tragic events took place that would lead to the loss of an iconic bird: the great auk.
Plants & Animals
Jul 11, 2017
0
17
(Phys.org)—A small team of researchers from Italy, Norway and Austria has found evidence of an ancient extinct goose relative that once lived in what is now central Italy. In their paper published in Royal Society Open ...
Birds have an enormously long evolutionary history: The earliest of them, the famed Archaeopteryx, lived 150 million years ago in what is today southern Germany. However, whether these early birds were capable of flying—and ...
Archaeology
Oct 6, 2015
11
1077
3D imaging of a mummified kestrel that died due to forced overeating provides evidence that the ancient Egyptians bred birds of prey as offerings for the gods, according to a new study published in the Journal of Archaeological ...
Archaeology
Sep 3, 2015
0
55
(Phys.org) —A team of researchers in China studying ancient avian bones found in the northern part of that country, suspect the remains may be that of the oldest known example of chicken domestication. In their paper published ...
The most comprehensive family tree of meat-eating dinosaurs ever created is enabling scientists to discover key details of how birds evolved from them.
Archaeology
Sep 25, 2014
2
2
(Phys.org) —The hunt is on to find the rightful parents of a fossil egg that reputedly belongs to an extinct ancient bird from the Australian Ice Age.
Archaeology
Jun 24, 2014
0
2
