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Source: Pixar Bay |
Some 65 million years ago, a large asteroid collision or large-scale volcanic eruption at the end of the Cretaceous period led to mass extinctions of non-algae dinosaurs.
However, even in the midst of catastrophe, snails, bivalve clams, starfish, sea urchins, turtles, crocodiles, salamanders, frogs and most mammals survived and birds were also able to avoid mass extinctions. But it has not been clear what kind of bird dinosaur survived.
According to a recent study from Argentine researchers, a new class of bird species, Vegaviidae, are algae that survived past mass extinctions. This bird is a group of waterbirds similar to goose.
The bird is believed to have made a similar cry of a goose to Abisha and resides in the water. Ducks, geese, and chickens.
Although Vegabis and birds are now extinct, Federico Agnorin of the Buenos Aires Natural Science Museum explained that Vegabis and birds are bird species that survived the catastrophe that killed the dinosaurs.
For a long time scientists have traveled around the world to find traces of surviving birds and found a nearly complete bird skull that was supposedly made in the Mesozoic era in Antarctica in 2005. The bird, the protagonist of this fossil, was named Vegavis iaai. These birds were similar to modern ducks.
Agronin is a fossil of the early Cretaceous Neogaeornis wetzeli fossil discovered in Chile, Polgorornis gregorii found in Antarctica, Polarornis gregorii found in Antarctica, It is similar to fossils of other birds such as the Roost (Australornis lovei).
Comparing these fossils with Vegabis fossils, they all had small, thick bones and were able to dive. These birds were distributed in the cold southern hemisphere.
Vegabis has been identified as the first group of birds in the Mesozoic to survive the catastrophic extinction of dinosaurs.
Agnorin explained that these birds could not fly well, saying they were birds with sharp beaks diving in the coastal area and eating prey.
It is not clear why Vegabis survived the extinction of dinosaurs and that other species of echinoderms, such as Enantiornithes, were extinct in the late Cretaceous, but the researchers found that the reason was related to the bones of birds said.
The researchers analyzed that Vegabis algae would have had a very high metabolism and had grown into an adult within one year of life. This growth rate is very unique.
Originally, the rate of growth of native algae is very slow and similar to reptiles. Therefore, the metabolism and the fast growth rate of Vega was different from other primitive birds.
This means that Vegabis has survived extreme environments such as the Antarctic and has not been extinct even in the event of a major disaster.
Scientists also hypothesized that the Gondwana continent, which was supposed to have existed in the southern hemisphere from late Paleozoic to mid Mesozoic due to the discovery of Vegabis, played an important role in the evolution of orts and birds (ducks, geese, swans, etc.) I can support it.
However, Luis Chiapi of the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum in California responded skeptically to the findings of Agrinor.
"There is a possibility that birds like primitive ducks exist in Antarctica. But since the pedigree of the Vegabis has not been sufficiently analyzed, we can not be sure of the relationship of the birds that are believed to belong to Vegabith. "
Gerald Meyer of the Museum of Natural History in Frankfurt, the Zensenberg Institute in Frankfurt, was also skeptical.
He agrees that Agnorin mentioned that the Vega bays are similar to the Pola Ornis birds, but said that there is insufficient evidence to classify Neo dog ornis or austral lornis as similar individuals.
