As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Wednesday 17 January 2018

This Bird 'Eyeball' Survived 120 Million Years

By Laura Geggel, Senior Writer | January 11, 2018 01:20pm ET

Scientists have discovered a surprisingly "visionary" detail about a dinosaur-age bird that had a tooth-filled beak: It could likely see in color.

An analysis of the 120-million-year-old bird revealed that the creature's eye tissues — more specially, its rods and cones — had fossilized in remarkable condition. (Whereas rods sense grey tones, cones detect colors.)

"We discovered a fossilized bird eye with soft tissue for the first time in the world," said study co-researcher Baochun Zhou, an associate professor of paleontology at the Shanghai Natural History Museum, in China. [Avian Ancestors: Images of Dinosaurs That Learned to Fly]




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