Prehistoric Giant Goose Skull Found

[jenseits]

Yet another article about ancient bird fossils in Northern Europe. Very cool:
Prehistoric Giant Goose Skull Found | LiveScience

Prehistoric Giant Goose Skull Found
By Andrea Thompson, Senior Writer

Scientists have found a new huge and well-preserved fossil of a goose and duck relative that swam around what is now England 50 million years ago flashing sharp, toothy smiles.

The skull, discovered on the Isle of Sheppey off the southeast coast of England in the Thames Estuary, belonged to a huge ancient bird in the extinct genus Dasornis, which had a whopping 16-foot (5-meter) wingspan.

"Imagine a bird like an ocean-going goose almost the size of a small plane!" said Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany and a member of the team that studied the skull. "By today's standards, these were pretty bizarre animals, but perhaps the strangest thing about them is that they had sharp, tooth-like projections along the cutting edges of the beak."

Scientists had found fossils of other bony-toothed birds, or pelagornithids, in deposits called the London Clay, which underlies much of London, Essex and northern Kent in the southeast of England. This new fossil, from the same clay layer, is one of the most well-preserved fossils ever found there and has provided scientists with previously unknown details of the birds' anatomy. Mayr's study of the fossil is detailed in the Sept. 26 issue of the journal Palaeontology.

Like all living birds, Dasornis had a beak made of keratin, the same substance that forms our hair and fingernails. But unlike modern birds, whose ancestors lost their teeth through evolutionary processes, Dasornis had bony "pseudo-teeth" (true teeth are made of enamel and dentine).

Mayr said that the ancestors of modern birds likely lost their teeth to save weight and make flying easier, but that bony-toothed birds such as Dasornis re-evolved them for dietary reasons.

"These birds probably skimmed across the surface of the sea, snapping up fish and squid on the wing," he explained. "With only an ordinary beak, these would have been difficult to keep hold of, and the pseudo-teeth evolved to prevent meals slipping away."

Researchers think that the closest living relatives to Dasornis are not other big birds such as the albatross, but ducks and geese.

[guest1717171]

THAT is so cool!

thanks!

[mmr]

I was hoping for a picture!!!

[Copper]

Imagine T-giving dinner.... who gets the wing?

[xafsmom]

LMAO Copper! I was thinking that too! Mm mmm bet that bird was tasty!

[TikusMom]

Seriously?! Please tell me no one actually takes this as fact.
Are these people who "reconstructed" what this bird's skull was supposed to look like for REAL?! I'm an artist, okay, and I know I could have come up with a really cool drawing to complete the skull they found, too...since there was **NOTHING** but the cranium found! No maxilla...No mandible...just the upper portion of the skull and eye sockets.
Good grief! This reminds me of the "scientists" who found a single tooth, a molar to be precise, and reconstructed an entire humanoid skull from it, only to find out (after they had made their "discovery" public) that the tooth came from an extinct PIG!
It's not like evolution runs on "Hmm...I think I'd like to eat this type of food, so I'll just grow some teeth...but that does make flying harder, so I guess I'll lose the teeth....but then again, I really like to eat that food, so I guess I'll just sprout some more teeth!" Seriously!!

[Copper]

Maybe they have just watched too many dino movies??
We have to remember that they are making hypothosis.... calculated guesses with any discovery... It may be based on evolutionary findings, but it's still guess work until someone makes a time machine and we can go back and see the real thing.

[TikusMom]

True that my friend

I just have to note, that the Truth which is so simply obvious is completely dismissed and waaaay too many people are all too eager to jump on the band wagon of the next big theory and as embrace it as absolute fact...regardless of how many times those "facts" are changed. But I digress, and will say no more on the matter.

Now, where's that darn DeLorian time machine when you need it?!

[Copper]

Remember that the DeLorian was smashed by a train in the last movie, but the doc re-invented it as a train

[TikusMom]

OOOO! Even BETTER! TIIIIIME TRAAAAIIIN!!!!! hehehe!
I wanna ride! Wonder when (and where) doc and the train are now???