Paleontologists have found the fossilized seeds of gymnosperm trees — relatives of today’s conifers and ginkgos — in stomachs of two specimens of Longipteryx chaoyangensis, one of the earliest known birds and one of the strangest. The discovery shows that these birds were eating fruits, despite a long-standing hypothesis that they feasted on fish, and more recent hypotheses it ate insects, with its incredibly strong teeth.
Longipteryx chaoyangensis lived in what is now northeastern China during the Cretaceous period, some 120 million years ago.
First described in 2000, this ancient bird had a long skull and teeth only at the tip of its beak.
“Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the body, and Longipteryx’s tooth enamel is 50 microns thick,” said Alex Clark, a Ph.D. student at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago.
“That’s the same thickness of the enamel on enormous predatory dinosaurs like Allosaurus that weighed 4,000 pounds, but Longipteryx was the size of a bluejay.”
Scientists previously suggested that a kingfisher-like elongated skull of Longipteryx chaoyangensis meant that it hunted fish. However, this hypothesis has been challenged by a number of studies.
“There are other fossil birds, like Yanornis, that ate fish, and we know because specimens have been found with preserved stomach contents, and fish tend to preserve well,” said Dr. Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles in the Field Museum.
“Plus, these fish-eating birds had lots of teeth, all the way along their beaks, unlike how Longipteryx only has teeth at the very tip of its beak. It just didn’t add up.”
However, no specimens of Longipteryx chaoyangensis had been found with fossilized food still in their stomachs for scientists to confirm what it ate — until now.
In the new research, the paleontologists examined two new specimens of this species.
They were able to determine that the tiny, round structures in the birds’ stomachs…
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