Europe's last Mesozoic bird

Abstract

Birds known from more than isolated skeletal elements are rare in the fossil record, especially from the European Mesozoic. This paucity has hindered interpretations of avian evolution immediately prior to, and in the aftermath of, the Cretaceous-Tertiary (K-T) extinction event. We report on a specimen of a large ornithurine bird (closely related to Ichthyornis) from the uppermost Cretaceous (Maastricht Formation) of Belgium. This is the first record of a bird from these historic strata and the only phylogenetically informative ornithurine to be recovered from the Mesozoic of Europe. Because this new specimen was collected from 40 m below the K-T boundary (approximate age of 65.8 Ma), it is also the youngest non-neornithine (= non-modern) bird known from anywhere in the world.

Mass extinction of birds at the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) boundary

“…Outside of North America, only a handful of archaic birds can be constrained to the last half of the Maastrichtian (9,35). Nevertheless, a wide range of archaic birds are now known from the Late Cretaceous of Asia (32,33,36,37), Europe (35,38), South America (31,39), and Madagascar (40) (SI Appendix). The lack of temporal constraint makes it difficult to be certain that these birds were part of an abrupt extinction coinciding with the K-Pg boundary, yet these fossils do emphasize that the Late Cretaceous harbored an avian fauna that differed radically from that of the Cenozoic.…”

Morphology, Phylogenetic Taxonomy, and Systematics of Ichthyornis and Apatornis (Avialae: Ornithurae)

“…These taxa should be further evaluated. Dyke et al (2002) recently suggested affinities of a new fragmentary avialan specimen from the Maastrictian of the Netherlands with Ichthyornis. If the description given is faithful to the specimen, it is not referable to Ichthyornis dispar, otherwise indicated as closely related to it, or confirmably supported as part of Ornithurae.…”

“…Two other characters listed as supporting affinities of the Maastricht specimen with Ichthyornis, so far as their meaning was understood, are not present in any holotype or referred Ichthyornis material, or optimized as synapomorphies of that taxon: i.e., ''medial deflection of the distal end of the humerus'' and ''hooked dorsal and ventral humeral condyle'' (Dyke et al, 2002: 411). The described presence of a brachial scar and globose head of the humerus (the two characters supporting its placement as part of Ornithurae; Dyke et al, 2002) could not be discerned in the photograph of the extensively crushed, poorly preserve proximal and distal ends of the humerus (Dyke et al, 2002: fig. 1a).…”

Additional non-avian theropod and bird remains from the early Late Cretaceous (Santonian) of Hungary and a review of the European abelisauroid record

“…Concerning birds of the European Late Cretaceous, fossils are even more scanty than in the case of non-avian theropods and except for some associated bones in marine sediments (Dyke et al 2002) the material is actually represented by isolated postcranial remains . Only three taxa, a giant ground bird Gargantuavis philoinos Buffetaut and Le Loeuff, 1998 and two enantiornithine Martinavis cruzyensis Walker, Buffetaut and Dyke, 2007 and Bauxitornis mindszentyae Dyke and Ősi, 2010 have been identified at species level.…”

“…Only three taxa, a giant ground bird Gargantuavis philoinos Buffetaut and Le Loeuff, 1998 and two enantiornithine Martinavis cruzyensis Walker, Buffetaut and Dyke, 2007 and Bauxitornis mindszentyae Dyke and Ősi, 2010 have been identified at species level. Most of the additional, isolated bird bones were mainly referred to enantiornithine (Buffetaut 1998;Buffetaut et al 2000, Dyke et al 2008, Ősi 2008 and ornithurine (Dyke et al 2002, Dyke et al 2008, Wang et al 2010 birds. Furthermore, an isolated feather from Upper Cretaceous of Slovenia has to be mentioned (Buffetaut et al 2002).…”