Scientists have reconstructed the skull of a seagull-sized bird that may represent a pivotal moment as dinosaurs transitioned into modern-day birds. The 3D fossil of Ichthyornis dispar, which lived in North America about 86 million years ago, reveals that the first bird beaks had teeth. Found in the 1870s and known to Charles Darwin, the fossil was examined using CT scans. “The first beak was a horn-covered pincer tip at the end of the jaw,” said Bhart- Anjan Bhullar, a paleontologist from Yale who carried out the study, published in Nature, with scientists from Bath University. At its origin, the beak was a precision grasping mechanism that served as a surrogate hand as the hands transformed…

Source: The Times May 02, 2018 22:52 UTC