Dr Ryan Felice’s lab publishes new paper in Nature

Ryan Felice collaborated on a new paper in Nature describing a new fossil bird from the Cretaceous of Madagascar, Falcatakely forsterae  

Mesozoic birds display considerable diversity in size, flight adaptations and feather organization^1,2,3,4, but exhibit relatively conserved patterns of beak shape and development ^5,6,7. Although Neornithine (that is, crown group) birds also exhibit constraint on facial development ^8,9, they have comparatively diverse beak morphologies associated with a range of feeding and behavioural ecologies, in contrast to Mesozoic birds. Here we describe a crow-sized stem bird, Falcatakely forsterae gen. et sp. nov., from the Late Cretaceous epoch of Madagascar that possesses a long and deep rostrum, an expression of beak morphology that was previously unknown among Mesozoic birds and is superficially similar to that of a variety of crown-group birds (for example, toucans). The rostrum of Falcatakely is composed of an expansive edentulous maxilla and a small tooth-bearing premaxilla. Morphometric analyses of individual bony elements and three-dimensional rostrum shape reveal the development of a neornithine-like facial anatomy despite the retention of a maxilla–premaxilla organization that is similar to that of nonavialan theropods. The patterning and increased height of the rostrum in Falcatakely reveals a degree of developmental lability and increased morphological disparity that was previously unknown in early branching avialans. Expression of this phenotype (and presumed ecology) in a stem bird underscores that consolidation to the neornithine-like, premaxilla-dominated rostrum was not an evolutionary prerequisite for beak enlargement.

To learn more about the work of the Felice lab please go to the website