Nature Communications (Jun 2021)

Cretaceous bird with dinosaur skull sheds light on avian cranial evolution

  • Min Wang,
  • Thomas A. Stidham,
  • Zhiheng Li,
  • Xing Xu,
  • Zhonghe Zhou

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-24147-z
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 12, no. 1
pp. 1 – 9

Abstract

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In addition to major innovations in their locomotor system, early birds evolved highly derived skulls. Here, Wang et al. three dimensionally reconstruct the skull of a new enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous that illustrates the early avialan transitions in skull morphology and function.