(ORDO NEWS) — Science alert publishes material about the discovery by Australian paleontologists of the remains of an extinct bird species Dromornis Stirtoni, which are considered the most ancient birds on Earth.
These birds are considered the ancestors of modern chickens and ducks, they inhabited the Earth about 8 million years ago.
So far, scientists have been able to find only part of the bird’s leg, but they believe that other parts of the bird’s remains that have not yet been excavated may lie nearby.
“We only found the drumstick, because that’s all we dug up.
We can expect most, if not all, of the rest of the skeleton to be found during future excavations,” said Adam Yates, paleontologist and curator of the Earth Sciences Department at the North End Museum and Art Gallery.
The fossilized bones were found in the Alkuta Nature Reserve, which is located 190 kilometers northeast of Alice Spring.
By the way, in this area, the most remains of terrestrial vertebrates in Australia were previously found.
Excavations have been carried out here since the eighties of the last century, and experts have already managed to find quite a few artifacts.
But many fragments of various animal species were mixed up by the floods.
Paleontologist Yates called the bird an “extreme evolutionary experiment” because it had a set of amazing anatomical features.
A large beak protruded from the small skull of the bird, and its body reached three meters in height and weighed up to half a ton.
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