#neornithes

[new-dinosaurs]

Lumbrerornis rougieri Bertelli et al., 2024 (new genus and species)

(Tibiotarsus [fused shin and ankle bones] of Lumbrerornis rougieri [scale bar = 10 mm], from Bertelli et al., 2024)

Meaning of name: Lumbrerornis = Lumbrera Formation bird [in Greek]; rougieri = for Guillermo Rougier [Argentinian paleontologist and discoverer of the original fossil]

Age: Eocene (Lutetian)

Where found: Lumbrera Formation, Salta, Argentina

How much is known: A partial left hindlimb and an indeterminate bone fragment.

Notes: Lumbrerornis is the first bird to be named from the Lumbrera Formation. It is unclear exactly what type of bird it was, but it has some similarities to two groups of long-legged Eocene birds from the Northern Hemisphere, the European palaeotidids and the North American geranoidids, both of which appear to have been closely related to ostriches.

Reference: Bertelli, S., N.P. Giannini, D.A. García-López, V. Deraco, J. Babot, C. del Papa, M.A. Armella, C. Herrera, and G. Mayr. 2024. The first Eocene bird from Northwestern Argentina. Publicación Electrónica de la Asociación Paleontológica Argentina 24: 78–89. doi: 10.5710/PEAPA.31.05.2024.511

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

Dino question: how come birds used to have teeth and now they don’t? Was there some evolutionary bottleneck where only dinosaurs with beaks evolved and all the toothed ones died off? And what’s the benefit of beaks over teeth?

there was an evolutionary bottleneck! it was the end-cretaceous extinction

for some reason, birds with beaks survived, and those with teeth did not. that's literally the dividing line. Leading hypotheses center around the ability of the beak to access hard to access food, such as seed and other things in hard casings, that would have been a source of food in the impact winter - plants survive such disasters with spores and the like, so if you could eat such hard casings, you had food that no one else had.

plus, most of the toothed birds lived in trees, which would have been burned to a crisp in the worldwide wildfires. Neornithines were mostly associated with aquatic habitats at this point, which had better hiding places

so, yeah. by sheer coincidence, the only dinosaurs that could survive one of the most dramatic bottleneck events in earth's history were just the ones that didn't have teeth.

[herpsandbirds]

Direct evidence of frugivory in the Mesozoic bird Longipteryx contradicts morphological proxies for diet

Jingmai O’Connor, Alexander Clark, Fabiany Herrera, Xiaoting Zheng, Han Hu, Zhonghe��Zhou

Summary

Diet is one of the most important aspects of an animal’s ecology, as it reflects direct interactions with other organisms and shapes morphology, behavior, and other life history traits. Modern birds (Neornithes) have a highly efficient and phenotypically plastic digestive system, allowing them to utilize diverse trophic resources, and digestive function has been put forth as a factor in the selectivity of the end-Cretaceous mass extinction, in which only neornithine dinosaurs survived. Although diet is directly documented in several early-diverging avian lineages, only a single specimen preserves evidence of diet in , the dominant group of terrestrial Cretaceous birds. Morphology-based predictions suggest enantiornithines were faunivores, although the absence of evidence contrasts with the high preservation potential and relatively longer gut-retention times of these diets.  Longipteryx is an unusual Early Cretaceous enantiornithine with an elongate rostrum; distally restricted dentition; large, recurved, and crenulated teeth; and tooth enamel much thicker than other paravians. Statistical analysis of rostral length, body size, and tooth morphology predicts Longipteryx was primarily insectivorous.  Contrasting with these results, two new specimens of Longipteryx preserve gymnosperm seeds within the abdominal cavity interpreted as ingesta. Like Jeholornis, their unmacerated preservation and the absence of gastroliths indicate frugivory.  As in Neornithes, complex diets driven by the elevated energetic demands imposed by flight, secondary rostral functions, and phylogenetic influence impede the use of morphological proxies to predict diet in early-diverging avian lineages.

Read the paper here:

Direct evidence of frugivory in the Mesozoic bird Longipteryx contradicts morphological proxies for diet: Current Biology (cell.com)

[theriverbeyond]

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, by pipstrelle/ @neornithes

Endpaper art: Grody Maritime Necromancy by @iris-of-the-lambs

Being the journal of Reverend Daughter Harrowhark Nonagesimus, chronicling the journey of the Emperor's warship Cenotaph on its hunt to slay an immortal Resurrection Beast.

or: THE MOBY DICK AU!! This fic has been an all time favorite of mine for so long, I am so excited to finally have been able to bind it!

Title font: AquilineTwo

Body font: Garamond

333 pages

Faux leather cover (Skivertex) with hand-embossed gold foil

Progress pictures/process under the cut!

The concept behind this fanbind is based on this specific special edition of Moby Dick by the Easton Press:

I did a TON of things for the first time on this bind much of it largely by winging it.

making the hubs (bumps on the spine)

first time rounding and backing (ft secret other binding project I can't show yet) + printing it off in the library

installing the FANTASTIC endpaper art (SOOO nervewracking), plus a close up shot of how I got the center crease to land JUST to the left of Harrow's face, which I'm super proud of.

foiling for days!! using the Easton Press edition as a guide, I mocked up a cover in MS Paint, then printed it off so I could foil it down. my hand was cramping but it was SO worth it!

and finally some unboxing pictures from the lovely writer!! so happy it arrived home safe and sound

[otussketching]

Fossil Novembirb: Day 1 - The Chosen Ones

All the dinosaurs died out at the end of the Cretaceous during the K/Pg extinction event 66 million years ago. All of them? No! One group of dinosaurs managed to survive the event and are still around today. Neornithes, or Crown birds. They evolved during the end of the Cretaceous period, and by coincidence, had traits tohelp them survive the cataclysm. Here's a few of these early feathered friends.

Teviornis, a large wading Presbyornithid (flamingo-duck) from Mongolia

"Styginetta", a smaller Presbyornithid (flamingo duck) known from Western North America

Vegavis, a strange, small diving seabird related to ducks and geese, known from Antarctica

Asteriornis, sometimes called the "wonder-chicken", a tiny long legged shorebird related to the common ancestors of ducks and chickens, known from Belgium

[quark-nova]

Why defining "birds" precisely is hard

(A reply to @lyxthen-reblogs that got too long and is now its own post)

A long time ago (in the 1700s), we didn't really have any idea of how birds came about - evolutionary theory itself would have to wait another century! And, we didn't have knowledge of extinct species either, or even of the fact extinction was a thing. Carl Linnaeus, when setting up the first taxonomical classification of life, grouped modern birds in the class Aves. Mammals were grouped in Mammalia, reptiles, amphibians and cartilaginous fish in Amphibia, bony fish in Pisces, arthropods in Insecta and all other animals in Vermes.

This first classification was pretty crude, and, around 1820, scientists like de Blainville and Latreille began distinguishing reptiles from "batrachians" as separate classes. De Blainville, pointing out similarities between reptiles and birds, labelled the former as "ornithoid" (bird-like) while amphibians were "ichthyoid" (fish-like). In 1825, Latreille fully separated amphibians (Batrachia, later Amphibia) from reptiles (Reptilia).

The first major turning point for taxonomy came in the next decades, as many fossils of now-extinct creatures were unearthed. In 1842, Richard Owen coined the term Dinosauria, then uniting the recently discovered Megalosaurus, Hylaeosaurus and Iguanodon.

But it wouldn't be until the 1860s that Darwinian evolution would highlight the flaws in the earlier understanding of separate classes. In 1863, Thomas Henry Huxley would suggest uniting birds and reptiles, creating the class Sauropsida the next year. Huxley was the first to suggest birds evolved from dinosaurs, comparing the recently-discovered Archaeopteryx (1861) with Compsognathus. As cladistics didn't exist back then, no attempt at precisely extending the definition of "bird" to extinct forms was made, even though Archaeopteryx was usually called "the first bird" (Urvogel).

Unfortunately, this hypothesis would be shelved for a whole century, leading to little progress happening in terms of understanding bird evolution. It wouldn't be until the 1960s and the Dinosaur Renaissance that the links between birds and dinosaurs would be rediscovered, with birdlike theropods like Deinonychus being unearthed. This would really accelerate with the discovery of extremely well-preserved feathered dinosaurs, starting with Sinosauropteryx in 1996.

With numerous fossils showing steps of a gradual dinosaur-to-bird transition, the question of defining the "first bird" came to be asked again. To try to answer this, Jacques Gauthier coined the clade Avialae in 1986 as all dinosaurs more closely related to modern birds than to deinonychosaurs. This included Archaeopteryx, which other authors used for an alternate definition of Avialae: "the smallest clade containing Archaeopteryx and modern birds".

Still, the conflict didn't end there. Fundamentally, there were many ways to extend Aves (as defined from modern birds) to past ancestors, and, in 2001, Gauthier and de Quieroz identified four. Avemetatarsalia, defined as any archosaur closer to birds than to crocodilians (including all dinosaurs and pterosaurs!). Avifilopluma, defined as any archosaur possessing feathers homologous to bird ones. Avialae, redefined as any dinosaur able to fly (and their flightless descendants). And finally, Aves or Neornithes, the crown-group (the last common ancestor of modern birds, and its descendants).

The issues were many. Avifilopluma became mostly useless as a definition as ornithischians, then pterosaurs, were found to possess filaments homologous with bird feathers. Virtually every bird-line archosaur (with the possible exception of the little-known aphanosaurs) could likely fit in this clade, and its content was too uncertain to be reliably used.

Meanwhile, Avialae had (and continues to have) three distinct definitions. Notably, the ability for flight itself proved to be a poor definition, as bird relatives (Maniraptora, including Deinonychus, Velociraptor, Oviraptor, and many other bird-like theropods) likely evolved flight several times, from the four-winged Microraptor to the bat-winged Yi qi. Truly, most maniraptorans were extremely bird-like: wings had evolved much earlier than flight itself, with even dinosaurs like Velociraptor sporting fully feathered wings despite being unable to fly.

So, what was left? The crown group Neornithes, a vaguely defined Avialae, a more extensive Maniraptora, the stem group Avemetatarsalia, and lots of confusion. Usually, Aves is taken today as referring to either Neornithes or Avialae, although Avifilopluma/Avimetatarsalia are also in use (for instance, the Sinosauropteryx discoverers used Avifilopluma, and considered it a bird).

But none of these definitions are inherently better or worse. They are all different ways of extending a definition made for modern creatures to have it apply to past ones.

[vvalllerie]

Alright I give. trick or treat my friend

AND IT'S A TRICK. EN GARDE

🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺🤺

(No but really, happy halloweekend)

GASP!!!! IVE BEEN TRICKED 😭😭 ohhhh the betrayal……. it hurts….. yeowch…. *pauses my dramatic antics and cracks one eye open to see if you’re still paying attention*

okay but for real!! you might be interested to know that the past week i’ve been researching Mesozoic birds and how we can improve fossil analysis, as well as analysis of today’s birds and their evolution from Avialan dinosaurs, to produce better reconstruction and more accurate images of said prehistoric species :)

and also flight modes! different bone lengths in the ‘hand’ of the wing impacts the way that birds fly, and this also applies to the early ‘birds’ that evolved into modern Neornithes!

did you know that Archaeopteryx Lithographica has been considered the first bird since 1861 (unofficially), but more recent discoveries like Aurornis Xui have caused many scientists to re-classify Archaeopteryx as a dinosaur instead?

very funny to me; he looks quite like a bird.. and was the size of one too! it weighed about 1.8-2.2 pounds and was about 1’8” long and in between 5 and 7 inches tall, about the size of a modern raven or a magpie. it had a wingspan of up to a little over 2 feet, and along with feathers, it also had a wishbone, which modern birds have!

anyways,, hope you enjoyed my infodump about what i’ve learned recently ❤️ love you and miss you!!

[spacefinch]

It's time for (drumroll please)

🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁🥁

BIRD FACTS WITH FINCH!

Today's bird is ....

The PEREGRINE FALCON!

Latin name: Falco peregrinus

Cladistic placement:

Eukaryota

Animalia

Chordata

Dinosauria

Avialae

Neornithes

Neognathes

Falconiformes

Falconidae

Falco

F. peregrinus

Location: Every continent except Antarctica.

Habitat: Peregrines can be found in a variety of open habitats, such as mountains, shorelines, plains, even cities!

Fun facts:

The peregrine falcon is the fastest animal in the world! In a dive, it can reach a top speed of over 240 miles per hour. And in level flight, its cruising speed is 40 to 60 mph.

How does a falcon dive so fast? Well....

A falcon has a large keel bone, or breast bone. The chest muscles attach to the keel and help generate the flapping power of the wings.

Falcons also have an aerodynamic shape: Long, pointed wings, a long tail, and a light, torpedo-shaped body. And when the falcon pulls its wings in, it lets gravity to the acceleration for it!

In order to survive such extreme speeds, the peregrine falcon has a very efficient circulatory and respiratory system. It has multiple air sacs that keep its lungs inflated even when exhaling, and a heart that can beat up to 900 times per minute. This allows oxygen to travel through the bird's body fast enough so that the falcon doesn't get too tired or lose consciousness.

And finally, to keep debris out of their eyes, falcons have a third, transparent, pair of eyelids called nictitating membranes. In fact, all birds have three pairs of eyelids!

More facts:

A falcon's dive is called a "stoop" and it takes a lost of practice. In fact, young falcon siblings practice by diving at one another, then pulling up at the last moment so not to get hurt.

A male falcon is called a tiercel, and he is much smaller than the female (simply called a falcon). A young falcon is called an eyas.

Peregrine falcons mate for life, and will return to the same nest site year after year. In the wilderness, they prefer cliff ledges, but they will also nest on the sides of urban buildings. They don't do much in the way of nest-building: just scrape a shallow depression and that's it.

Like the loggerhead shrike (see this post), the peregrine falcon has a notch in its beak called a tomial tooth, which it uses to kill its prey-- which is mainly smaller birds.

The name "peregrine" means "wanderer" or "pilgrim." And these birds certainly live up to their name! They're the most widespread diurnal land bird in the world!

Sources:

Wikipedia

All About Birds

The Animal Book, by Steve Jenkins

This article

EarthSky

National Geographic Kids: Bird Guide of North America, Second Edition

Of course, these are just a few of the many amazing facts about peregrine falcons! If you want to learn more, there's plenty of research to read up on!

You can also watch THIS video!

This has been BIRD FACTS WITH FINCH. If you have more fantastic falcon facts, please share them with me!

[iriel3000]

2012 Friday Recs - Week Three

Happy Friday! Some reading recommendations for your enjoyment. No particular order and more to come.

I honestly could do a whole year of 2012 recs.

certainty, fidelity by @pipistrelle/@neornithes

Fury has kept Hawkeye and the Black Widow apart for nearly eight weeks, so of course their on first mission together again everything goes to hell. 

Junkies by @FlatlandDan

Six years with SHIELD has turned them into adrenaline junkies, and sometimes the missions just aren’t enough.

Five people Clint and Natasha (but mostly Clint) lied to about how they met, and the one person they told the truth to by @prettyasadiagram

Clint is a filthy liar and Natasha isn't any better.

One Time It Wasn’t Tony’s Fault by @its_not_my_fault/@it-is-not-my-fault

Tony goes to the Medical Ward and runs into a fellow Avenger.

Concealed Weapons by @Meskeet/@justthebones

They do not know that her sparkling diamond bracelets are laced with poison.

Debriefing by @xahra99

SHIELD debriefs Natasha and Clint, and then they debrief each other.

a lack of control by @sevenfoxes/@sevensneakyfoxes

Never let a man know your weaknesses.

New Mexico State of Mind by @lar_laughs

Clint and Natasha have a complex relationship. Never more complex than when they aren't together.

If you are one of the authors or know them on tumblr and they are not properly tagged, please let me know in comments and I'll add them. Please feel free to click the Iriel3000fridayrecs link below to browse more categories.

[camgoloud]

i've been tagged by @nancywheeeler to participate in a wip game! this is excellent timing as i've really been struggling with finding the motivation to write recently but i've got a few things i'd like to put out there soon (one ideally within the next week or so!) so, without further ado:

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

bad people don't live in our house

lyctoral reversal

rotted leaves and lemon rind

left unattended, what do we do?

WAGAB

things that we were working on

and you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile

der rosenkavalier

skeleton warriors

let my fingers but see

that's not everything in there (not by a long shot tbh if you include the things i've put into long term storage) but ten titles should be more than enough for our purposes here i think!

in fact ten is maybe too many. uhh. okay no-pressure tagging @liesmyth, @friendamedes, @rnanqo, @arithmonym, @aberfaeth, @recentlylocal, @neornithes, @darlingofdots, @happi-tree, and anyone else who's interested!

[harpagornis]

Enantiornithean Earth: Dep la

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

aka the four groups of modern dinos (birds) that were around in the Cretaceous, and so must have survived through the end-Cretaceous extinction

we're ignoring Qinornis bc even if they aren't a neornithine (crown bird) they definitely didn't last v long

[greenfrog04]

Rarity of molt evidence in early pennaraptoran dinosaurs suggests annual molt evolved later among Neornithes

Published 3rd July

A study of multiple differnt avian and non-avian dinosaur specimens and comparing them to modern birds to look for evidence of molting in dinosaurs.

Proportion of observed modern bird species during sequential primary Molt.

Proportion of observed modern bird species during simultaneous primary molt.

study of the dinosaur fossil specimens concluded with only Microraptor showing signs of an active primary molt.

White throated Robbin during active primary molt and microraptor specimen.

I apologize for the terrible image quality, please check out the paper linked below to see them in higher quality if you're interested.

Source:

(open acces)

[intnewst]

Ученые узнали, как выглядел общий предок птиц Ученые выяснили что у общего предка современных птиц были разноцветные и переливающиеся перья. Новое исследование, опубликованное в журнале Nature Ecology and Evolution, ставит под сомнение популярную гипотезу о том, что окрас в прошлом был менее ярким, чем сейчас. Специалисты из Филдовского музея естественной истории в Чикаго решили выяснить, почему в тропиках больше птиц с насыщенным цветом перьев. Существуют предположения, что на это повлияла окружающая среда или у таких пернатых были «яркие» предки. Чтобы разобраться, исследователи создали базу данных по более чем 9400 видам птиц, которые описывали ученые. Так они смогли узнать, как цвет оперения меняется в зависимости от региона. На окрас влияют пигменты, которые дают определенный оттенок, или расположение клеточных структур. Например, второй способ придает перьям переливающийся эффект. В этом случае внешний вид зависит от света, который на них падает. Как оказалось, переливающиеся разноцветные перья встречались в процессе эволюции 415 раз. Обычно такая особенность была у птиц, обитавших за пределами тропиков. Исследователи объединили полученную информацию об окраске и местах, где обитают пернатые, с основанным на ДНК генеалогическим древом. Данные затем использовали для компьютерного моделирования, чтобы узнать о происхождении цветов современных птиц. Согласно результатам, разноцветные виды прибыли в тропики миллионы лет назад, а затем там их количество увеличилось. И модель предоставила данные о подклассе веерохвостовых птицы (Neornithes), к которому относятся все современные пернатые. У общего предка были яркие переливающиеся перья. Ученые отметили, что у них остались некоторые вопросы. Они не знают, почему у птиц вообще появились разноцветные и переливающиеся перья. Такая особенность им нужна для привлечения самок, но ее используют и в других целях. Исследователи надеются разгадать тайну в своих следующих работах. Недавно специалисты из Франции узнали, почему курицы краснеют. Оказалось, что такая особенность есть не только у людей. Как выяснили ученые, у кур есть мимика.

[theriverbeyond]

salut!!! do you have any fave griddlehark au fics?? your taste is immaculate so i would appreciate the recs

omg thank u!! and YES i have tons of recs. I have started a couple of bookmark collections on ao3 for my personal favorite fics, THREE of which are about griddlehark!! As a heads up I only made them somewhat recently, and am therefore trying to catch up on my bookmarks backlog, so they aren't complete but I recommend everything in them :D

Griddlehark Modern AU bookmark collection (what it says on the tin, all fics >10k words) Griddlehark Canon Divergence AU bookmark collection (Basically any AU ft. griddlehark with canon divergence from any period in the timeline, including regular canon divergence & more drastic alternate paths such as Nova AU, BOE!Gideon, Her Divine Highness AU, etc) Griddlehark Misc AU bookmark collection (Any non-canon, non-mundane AU)

for specific fic recs, just off the top of my head:

Waiting and Better Days by badgerjaw (Griddlehark modern AU sickfic & hurt/comfort, made me cry (positive), really beautifully written)

I am one of the young women who was rescued from the Locked Tomb cult, AMA. by mintpearlvoice (formatted like a reddit AMA, funny but also angsty in the best way. what can i say but them <3)

literally anything written by @valancietrinit/valancytrinit, especially if you like your alternative universes with an angsty modern flavor they have some utterly FANTASTIC oneshots here, literally no words u just have to read them and experience it for yourself

hold you like a weapon by @gideonisms/GingerAlchemy (ballet fake dating AU with pitch perfect griddlehark dialogue and banter. holding them in my arms)

The Heart Is Hard To Translate by JustBeCos (BOE!Gideon AU, Harrow is captured by BOE and Gideon ends up guarding her. One of the most scrunchable Harrows ever, with SUCH a well written Gideon as well, tears my heart out with each update!!!)

Mors Vicit Omnia by @four-for-fidelity/WalkingDisaster (forensic anthropology AU that has me by the THROAT!!! in suspense, truly one of the Fics Of All Time, to me)

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by @neornithes/pipistrelle (MOBY DICK AU where the scions of the Houses are called by God to go on a Ressurection Beast hunt. Once again, truly one of the fics of ALL time, the way this fic re-interprets Resurrection Beasts, Lyctorhood, the River, and necromancy in general is just beyond fantastic)

[raptor-dash]

Adorable! Thank you!

I'll be honest and say I don't know too much specifically about Yingliang and their species that isn't available on Wikipedia, but here are some somewhat related facts:

Oviraptors like Yingliang are named unjustly, after the idea that the eggs they were found with were from another species, making them "egg thieves". This was later found to be untrue, but the slanderous name stays.

A significant reason the ancestors of today's birds (the Neornithes) survived the Cretaceous extinction was because of their egg-laying! This has to do with 3 factors: 1) their eggs had chalazae, structures which kept the yolk stable and allowed better distribution of nutrients, 2) their eggs were more spherical, also led to better nutrient distribution, and 3) they laid eggs above the surface like birds do today, rather than burying eggs in sediment like most dinosaurs. These helpful adaptations are still used today.

Baby pterosaurs are called flaplings.

If there's anything I can draw that'll make things slightly better or brighter for you let me know!