It was about the size of a bluejay, had a long skull, and incredibly hard teeth on the end of its beak. At the time, scientists thought they knew why the prehistoric bird had these unusual features.<\/p>
But in a new study published in the journal\u00a0Current Biology<\/em>, researchers reveal that the recent discovery of two Longipteryx<\/em> specimens on a museum shelf \u2013 and more specifically what was found inside their stomachs \u2013 provides irrefutable proof that this original hypothesis is wrong.<\/p> When Longipteryx<\/em>\u00a0was discovered more than 20 years ago, scientists thought that its long skull and hard teeth meant that it hunted fish, much like kingfishers<\/a> do today. <\/p> However, other scientists, including Jingmai O\u2019Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles in the Field Museum\u2019s Neguanee Integrative Rehowever, thought otherwise.<\/p> \u201cThere are other fossil birds, like\u00a0Yanornis<\/em>, that ate fish, and we know because specimens have been found with preserved stomach contents, and fish tend to preserve well. Plus, these fish-eating birds had lots of teeth, all the way along their beaks, unlike how\u00a0Longipteryx<\/em>\u00a0only has teeth at the very tip of its beak,\u201d explains O\u2019Connor. \u201cIt just didn\u2019t add up.\u201d<\/p> However, no specimens of\u00a0Longipteryx<\/em>\u00a0had been found with fossilised food still in their stomachs for scientists to confirm what it ate, until recently when O\u2019Connor visited the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature in China, where she noticed two\u00a0<\/em>specimens that appeared to have something in their stomachs.<\/p> Intrigued to find out if her suspicions were correct, O\u2019Connor consulted with her colleague Fabiany Herrera, Field Museum associate curator of fossil plants, who was able to confirm that the tiny, round structures in the birds\u2019 stomachs were seeds from the fruits of an ancient tree \u2013 a relative of today\u2019s conifers and gingkos.<\/p> The researchers suspect that while seeds made up a large proportion of Longipteryx<\/em>‘s diet, it also ate things such as insects when fruit wasn’t available. <\/p> \u201cIt\u2019s always been weird that we didn\u2019t know what they were eating, but this study also hints at a bigger picture problem in palaeontology, that physical characteristics of a fossil don\u2019t always tell the whole story about what animal ate or how it lived,\u201d says O\u2019Connor.\u00a0<\/p> \u201cLongipteryx<\/em>\u00a0is one of my favourite fossil birds, because it\u2019s just so weird,\u201d says O\u2019Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles in the Field Museum\u2019s Neguanee Integrative Research Center and the study\u2019s lead author.\u00a0<\/p> So, if\u00a0Longipteryx<\/em> wasn\u2019t hunting for fish, then what was it using its long, pointy beak and strong teeth for? <\/p> \u201cThe thick enamel is overpowered, it seems to be weaponised,\u201d says Alex Clark, a PhD student at the Field Museum and the University of Chicago and a co-author of the paper.<\/p> \u201cTooth enamel is the hardest substance in the body, and\u00a0Longipteryx<\/em>\u2019s tooth enamel is 50 microns thick. That\u2019s the same thickness of the enamel on enormous predatory dinosaurs like\u00a0Allosaurus<\/em>\u00a0that weighed 4,000 pounds, but\u00a0Longipteryx<\/em>\u00a0is the size of a bluejay,\u201d Clark explains. <\/p> To try to understand how exactly Longipteryx\u00a0<\/em>was using its beak, Clark analysed a number of modern bird specimens. \u201cOne of the most common parts of the skeleton that birds use for aggressive displays is the rostrum, the beak. Having a weaponised beak makes sense, because it moves the weapon further away from the rest of the body, to prevent injury.\u201d\u00a0<\/p> \u201cThere are no modern birds with teeth, but there are these really cool little hummingbirds that have keratinous projections near the tip of the rostrum that resemble what you see in\u00a0Longipteryx<\/em>, and they use them as weapons to fight each other,\u201d O\u2019Connor adds. <\/p> The researchers are keen to find out more about the life of this weird prehistoric bird. <\/p> \u201cWe\u2019re trying to open up a new area of research for these early birds and get palaeontologists to look at these structures, like the beak, and think about the complexity of the behaviours that these animals might have engaged in beyond just what they were eating,\u201d concludes O\u2019Connor. <\/p> \u201cThere are many factors that could be shaping the structures that we see.\u201d<\/p> Main image: skull of Longipteryx, showing its teeth. Credit: Xiaoli Wang<\/em><\/p> More wild stories from around the world<\/strong><\/p> Palaeontologists thought they had figured out why the odd-looking bird had such sharp, rock-solid teeth, until they found something odd in its stomach… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":41970,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/09\/its-just-so-weird-scientists-just-found-something-very-strange-inside-the-guts-of-this-freaky-prehistoric-bird.jpg",1575,1050,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/09\/its-just-so-weird-scientists-just-found-something-very-strange-inside-the-guts-of-this-freaky-prehistoric-bird-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/09\/its-just-so-weird-scientists-just-found-something-very-strange-inside-the-guts-of-this-freaky-prehistoric-bird-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/09\/its-just-so-weird-scientists-just-found-something-very-strange-inside-the-guts-of-this-freaky-prehistoric-bird-768x512.jpg",768,512,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/09\/its-just-so-weird-scientists-just-found-something-very-strange-inside-the-guts-of-this-freaky-prehistoric-bird-1024x683.jpg",800,534,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/09\/its-just-so-weird-scientists-just-found-something-very-strange-inside-the-guts-of-this-freaky-prehistoric-bird-1536x1024.jpg",1536,1024,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/44\/2024\/09\/its-just-so-weird-scientists-just-found-something-very-strange-inside-the-guts-of-this-freaky-prehistoric-bird.jpg",1575,1050,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Palaeontologists thought they had figured out why the odd-looking bird had such sharp, rock-solid teeth, until they found something odd in its stomach...","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/41969"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcwildlife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Longipteryx\u00a0chaoyangensis\"](\"https:\/\/c02.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/62\/2024\/09\/Longipteryx-chaoyangensis-2-scaled.jpg\")
","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"