Birds in various shapes and forms make nature full of infinite vitality. Today I would like to introduce to you three kinds of characteristic birds: the first one lived hundreds of millions of years ago and no longer exists in the world, but its appearance and habits can be guessed from the fossils unearthed in our province; the second one, although it is more common, people But their names are often unknown; the third type is distributed in our province and is listed as a national first-level protected species, but it is not very common.
Yumen Gansuornis lived in the Cretaceous dinosaur era about 110 million years ago. It is an extinct fossil bird. It was first discovered in Shenjiawan Village, Changma Township, Yumen City. It was studied and named in 1984 by Mr. Liu Zhicheng, a famous paleontologist, researcher and collaborator at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Hou Lianhai. . It was listed as a first-level key protection in the first batch of "List of Paleontological Fossils under National Key Protection".
Yumen Gansuornis is the first Mesozoic bird discovered in my country (starting in the Triassic and ending in the Cretaceous ), and is also one of the earliest known modern birds (between dinosaurs and birds compared to transition types). When it was discovered, it was the second oldest bird known to the world, second only to the famous Archaeopteryx discovered in Bavaria, Germany (according to new research, Archeopteryx is no longer considered to belong to birds, but to belong to birds. are closely related to Deinonychus dinosaurs). In Gansu's "bird tree", the Yumen Gansu bird has the highest seniority and the oldest qualifications.
Unfortunately, although dozens of fossils of Yumen Gansuornithids have been unearthed since their discovery, the preservation is incomplete, and there are not even individuals with skulls, so the information obtained from the fossils is also limited. However, scientists still relied on these fossils to try to restore the appearance and habits of the Yumen Gansu bird during its lifetime. Birds have no teeth and need to eat hard objects such as small stones to grind their food. Stomach stones were found in the fossil of Yumen Gansu Bird, which shows that it already had this habit. In addition, it has traces of webbed toes, indicating that it may have been aquatic. Its bones were not hollow like modern birds, but rather heavier, indicating that its flight capabilities were limited. Based on these pieces of evidence and analysis, scientists gradually determined that the Yumen Gansu Bird is an amphibious bird that lives on the coast. It can fly but is not good at flying. It is about the same size as a pigeon, but its body shape is streamlined for diving. . It is further speculated that it may feed on fish and aquatic insects. It is not entirely certain whether Yumen Gansuornis has direct evolutionary descendants, but its body shape suitable for diving has many modern "successors", such as the cormorant and loon . It can be said that the latter two play the role of Gansu birds in modern nature more than 100 million years ago.
What’s interesting is that “Gansu Bird” is a genus name (a genus is a taxonomic level higher than a species, and species of the same genus are closely related). There may be more than one species under the genus, and Yumen Gansu Bird is only the third species. A discovered Gansu bird. In 2014, Chinese scientists discovered two unique bird fossils in the Jehol Biota fossils located in Lingyuan City, Liaoning Province. After research, it was found that among the known birds, the characteristics of Yumen Gansuornis were most similar to these two fossils, so the researchers named a new species: Zhen's Gansuornith (in honor of paleontologist Zhen Shuonan sir). So far, there are two ancient birds in the genus Yumengansuornis, and Yumengansuornis is finally no longer alone. The two Gansu birds have similar living habits and similar living ages, but their living locations span more than 2,000 kilometers from west to east. More importantly, although the number of Gansuornithnis fossils discovered is small, they are better preserved. More information has been obtained from them, which further verified the previous inferences about Yumen Gansuornith.
The scientific research value of Yumen Gansu Bird is of great value. Its discovery not only attracted widespread attention from the world's academic community, but also aroused great interest among scientific researchers to conduct research, thus kicking off the study of Mesozoic birds in my country. At present, the scientific research level of ancient birds in my country is at the forefront of the world, and it can be said that the discovery and research of Yumen Gansuornis played an important role in promoting it.
Today, pieces of Yumengansuornithornis fossils lie quietly in research institutes and museums, waiting to be interpreted for more information.
□Cong Peihao (Source: Daily Gansu Network)
Editor in charge: Zhao Haiyan
