Petrean Archaeopteryx. Photo courtesy of diary.ru
Fossilised remains of a huge bird that lived on Earth in Cretaceous geologic period (that started 145 million years ago and finished 65 million years ago), at the same time as dinosaurs, were found at the territory of Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports, referring to the Royal Society journal Biology Letters. The British information source said that the researchers had found a huge jaw of the new bird species named Samrukia nessovi by paleontologists. The scientists could only guess about the appearance of these giants. Dr Darren Naish of the University of Portsmouth suggested that the bird could be like an ostrich, 2-3 meters tall and weighed more that 50 kilograms. But in this case it was flightless. Or it could be shaped like a big albatross or condor, than it may have had a wingspan of 4 meters and could fly well. The Samrukia nessovi had a skull around 30cm long. These remains of the new species found in Kazakhstan are the first finding in Asia and the second in the world. The only other evidence of such a bird during the period was a fossilised spinal bone found in France, reported in Nature in 1995. It was considered earlier that only the pterosaurs flew above the earth at Cretaceous geologic period. There were some birds at the period, but they were crow-sized. However, the archeologists’ finding is a further evidence that giant birds lived on Earth at that Age.
Fossilised remains of a huge bird that lived on Earth in Cretaceous geologic period (that started 145 million years ago and finished 65 million years ago), at the same time as dinosaurs, were found at the territory of Kazakhstan, Tengrinews.kz reports, referring to the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.
The British information source said that the researchers had found a huge jaw of the new bird species named Samrukia nessovi by paleontologists. The scientists could only guess about the appearance of these giants. Dr Darren Naish of the University of Portsmouth suggested that the bird could be like an ostrich, 2-3 meters tall and weighed more that 50 kilograms. But in this case it was flightless. Or it could be shaped like a big albatross or condor, than it may have had a wingspan of 4 meters and could fly well. The Samrukia nessovi had a skull around 30cm long.
These remains of the new species found in Kazakhstan are the first finding in Asia and the second in the world. The only other evidence of such a bird during the period was a fossilised spinal bone found in France, reported in Nature in 1995.
It was considered earlier that only the pterosaurs flew above the earth at Cretaceous geologic period. There were some birds at the period, but they were crow-sized. However, the archeologists’ finding is a further evidence that giant birds lived on Earth at that Age.