Ancient bird with sickle-shaped beak offers insights into evolution

A 68 million-year-old fossil of a crow-sized bird discovered in Madagascar offers new insights into the evolution of face and beak shape of modern birds' ancestors, according to a new study involving UCL researchers. The findings are helping scientists to understand convergent evolution of complex anatomy. The bird has been named  Falcatakely , a combination of Latin and Malagasy words inspired by the small size and the scythe-like shape of the beak, which represents a completely novel face shape in Mesozoic birds. Co-author Dr Ryan Felice (UCL Cell & Developmental Biology) said: "Ever since Charles Darwin's observations of Galapagos finches with differently-shaped beaks, birds have shaped our understanding of evolution through natural selection. "This new discovery tells us even more about how the predecessors of modern birds evolved, by showing how different forces in different places can contribute to similar traits in distantly related animals." The species is known from a single well-preserved and nearly complete skull that was buried in a muddy debris flow around 68 million years ago in the late Cretaceous age (part of the Mesozoic era). The fossil was initially unearthed in 2010. Bird skeletons, and particularly their skulls, are rare in the fossil record because of their lightweight bones and small size.