Texas Researchers Find Existence Of Ostrich Ancestors In North America From 50 Million Years Ago

AUSTIN, TX -- Ostriches in other parts of the world looking to chart their family trees can now date their relatives to North America from millions of years ago, as fossil evidence discovered in part by University of Texas at Austin researchers has found.

Exceedingly well-preserved bird fossil specimens dating back 50 million years represent a species of a previously unknown relative of the modern-dayostrich, according to new research from Virginia Tech and The University of Texas at Austin published in the July issue of the Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, university officials said.

Like the ostrich itself, this is big. The find could help us determine, with growing specificity, the variety of avian life in North American from eons ago.

“This spectacular specimen could be a ‘keystone’ that helps interpret much of the sparse fossil (record) of birds that once lived in North America millions of years ago,” said lead author Sterling Nesbitt of Virginia Tech’s Department of Geosciences and the Global Change Center, in a prepared statement.

While the significance of the find is just now coming to light, the bird fossils actually were found more than a decade ago -- "...completely intact with bones, feathers and soft tissues in a former lake bed in Wyoming," researchers noted. This new species was named Calciavis grandei – with “calci” meaning “hard/stone,” “avis” from the Latin for bird, and “grandei” in honor of famed paleontologist Lance Grande.

Adjectives to describe the momentous discovery's impact are soaring (unlike the hapless ostrich) to new heights -- with Nesbitt categorizing the fossils as a "once-in-a-lifetime" discovery for paleontologists.

“This is among one of the earliest well represented bird species after the age of large dinosaurs,” he said.

Formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas, Nesbitt was hardly burying his head in the sand while studying here. Nay, this is when Nesbitt began studying the fossil in 2009, university officials said. He studied in Austin under the direction of Professor Julia Clarke -- a co-author on the research -- in the Department of Geological Sciences, officials added.

Some of the fossils are currently on display as part of the “Dinosaurs Among Us” exhibit at New York’s American Museum of Natural History. Other specimens used in the study are from the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and the Wyoming Geological Survey.

Researchers noted that two fossils of Calciavis grandei dating from the Eocene epoch – roughly between 56 million and 30 million years ago – were found by fossil diggers within the Green River Formation in Wyoming, which they describe as a "hotbed" for extinct fish.

“These are spectacularly preserved fossils, Clarke noted. "One is a nearly complete skeleton covered with feather remains. The others are nearly as complete, and some also show soft tissues as well."

The site of the find was something of an ostrich fossil mother lode: “Fossil birds are generally rare, but finds from the ancient Fossil Lake located in present day Wyoming are an exception,” Clarke said.

What helped was a generous coating of mud at the Wyoming dig that served as protection from damage, fortuitous given that bird bones are more fragile than those of mammal counterparts because of their hollow nature. The fossilized birds found in Wyoming seem to have covered in mud soon after their deaths, yielding the prized fossils now being celebrated as a major find in the world of paleontology.

That former lake that yielded the specimens is a well-known source of completely intact fish skeleton fossils as well as those of other birds, plants crocodilians, turtles, bats and other former inhabitants of an ecosystem from 50 million years ago, university officials noted.

“The new bird shows us that the bird group that includes the largest flightless birds of today had a much wider distribution and longer evolutionary history in North America,” Nesbitt said. “Back when Calciavis was alive, it lived in a tropical environment that was rich with tropical life, and this is in stark contrast to the high-desert environment in Wyoming today.”

Here's a fun fact: The species was about the size of a modern-day chicken. It's included in the extinct group of early Palaeognathae birds, the Lithornithidae. Nesbitt and Clarke said the bird is a very close relative of ostriches, kiwis and tinamous now living in the southern continents, university officials added.

Calciavis and other more tropical birds went extinct after tropical forests disappeared in North America, researchers said. Conjecture establishing links among ostrich species has led to some ruffled feathers in the scientific community. Clarke said she hopes the new fossil evidence might ameliorate the passion inherent to the ostrich-relatives debate.

“Relationships among species in this lineage of birds have been extremely contentious.” Clarke said. “We hope the detailed new anatomical data we provide will aid in finding a resolution to this ongoing debate.”

The work took flight thanks to a pair of grants from the Earth Sciences Directorate of the National Science Foundation, according to UT Austin officials.

The ostrich is either one or two species of large flightless birds native to Africa, according to Wikipedia. The last exciting ostrich-related news (up to now) came in 2014, when the Somali ostrich was recognized as a distinct species.

>>> Image via Wikimedia Commons