New tiny 44 million year old bird fossil links Africa and Asia to Utah

MARCH 3, 2020

by Midwestern University

A new species of quail-sized fossil bird from 44 million year old sediments in Utah fills in a gap in the fossil record of the early extinct relatives of chickens and turkeys, and it shows strong links with other extinct species from Namibia in Southern Africa and Uzbekistan in Central Asia.

In their paper in the online scientific journal Diversity, the authors Dr. Thomas Stidham (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences), Dr. Beth Townsend (Midwestern University, Arizona), and Dr. Patricia Holroyd (University of California Museum of Paleontology, Berkeley) describe the fossil of a distinct tiny bone from the shoulder girdle of an extinct quail-like bird from 44 million year old rocks in eastern Utah. While it is a unique fossil, the authors have not given it a formal scientific name, waiting until they find more bones of the skeleton. This new Utah bird appears to be the oldest fossil of the extinct group called Paraortygidae, a relative of the living Galliformes (the group that includes the living chicken, turkey, guineafowl, and quail). This fossil fits in a nearly 15 million-year gap in the fossil record of the galliform lineage in North America.

This extinct species is similar in size to the smallest living Galliformes like quail and hill partridges. It likely lived before the evolution of the large crop and gizzard that we see in living chickens and turkeys, and therefore the Utah species likely had a diet different from its living relatives. The earliest fossils of this paraortygid group are from arid habitats, the seashore, and inland forests demonstrating that they had flexibility in their ecology and diet.

Another interesting aspect of this new fossil is that it closely resembles the small size and unique shape of other early paraortygid fossils from sediments with a similar geological age from Namibia in southern Africa and Uzbekistan in Central Asia which were all separated from each other by oceans.

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Small birds fly at high altitudes towards Africa

Date:  August 6, 2018

Source:  Lund University

A new study from Lund University in Sweden shows that small birds migrating from Scandinavia to Africa in the autumn occasionally fly as high as 4,000 metres above sea level -- probably adjusting their flight to take advantage of favourable winds and different wind layers.

This is the first time that researchers have tracked how high small birds fly all the way from Sweden to Africa. Previous studies have successfully logged the flight height of larger migratory birds.

"We only followed two individuals and two species. But the fact that both of them flew so high does surprise me. It's fascinating and it raises new questions about the physiology of birds. How do they cope with the air pressure, thin air and low temperatures at these heights?," says Sissel Sjöberg, biologist at Lund University and the Zoological Museum in Copenhagen.

The aim of the study was to investigate whether the measuring method itself works on small birds, that is, to measure acceleration, barometric pressure (air pressure) and temperature throughout the flight using a small data logger attached to the bird.

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Fond farewell as little tern chicks set off on African migration

Anthony Carroll

PUBLISHED: 15:40 09 July 2018 | UPDATED: 16:17 09 July 2018

It is a 3,100 mile annual migration that sees one of the rarest seabirds in the land leave their nests in the Great Yarmouth area and head to Africa.

As these pictures show, little tern chicks are starting to leave their nests and make their way to their West African wintering grounds.

The chicks can be found at the dunes at Winterton and several other beaches in the area and they make up about 20pc of the country’s population of the bird.

Lyn Ibbitson-Elk, a RSPB little tern volunteer who caught some of the birds on camera along with fellow volunteer Kevin Simmonds, said: “I have had the privilege to volunteer on the RSPB Little Tern Project for several years and it is a very special experience.

“These precious little seabirds honour us in Norfolk with their presence for only a few months every year, having flown an astonishing 5,000km.

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Scientists stunned by decline of birds during epic Southern African roadtrip

Birds of prey fast disappearing from one of Africa's last great wilderness areas

Date:  June 6, 2018

Source:  University of Cape Town

Summary:

A two year project repeating a famous bird survey by driving over 20,000 km in a 4x4 across Botswana has confirmed researchers' fears: many birds of prey are fast disappearing from one of Africa's last great wilderness areas. Reported sightings of iconic species of eagle and vulture declined by as much as 80% compared with the previous survey, while some migrant species recorded last time have vanished, according to the study.

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Flight delays: Study finds out why some African birds stay home longer

Date:  March 21, 2018

Source:  University of British Columbia

Summary:

Parents of millennials still living at home aren't the only ones with children that refuse to leave. Many animal species have adult offspring that are slow to take flight, but when and how they leave has been poorly understood by scientists. Now, new UBC research on a desert-dwelling African bird is yielding some answers.

Martha Nelson-Flower, a postdoctoral fellow at UBC, studied the behaviour of wild southern pied babblers, which live in family groups of up to 14 in the Kalahari Desert in South Africa. Her findings, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, suggest that better prospects elsewhere, as well as family dynamics between brothers and stepfathers, play a big part in determining when offspring disperse.

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How the chicken crossed the Red Sea

Date: November 3, 2016

Source: Washington University in St. Louis

The discarded bone of a chicken leg, still etched with teeth marks from a dinner thousands of years ago, provides some of the oldest known physical evidence for the introduction of domesticated chickens to the continent of Africa, research from Washington University in St. Louis has confirmed.

Based on radiocarbon dating of about 30 chicken bones unearthed at the site of an ancient farming village in present-day Ethiopia, the findings shed new light on how domesticated chickens crossed ancient roads -- and seas -- to reach farms and plates in Africa and, eventually, every other corner of the globe.

"Our study provides the earliest directly dated evidence for the presence of chickens in Africa and points to the significance of Red Sea and East African trade routes in the introduction of the chicken," said Helina Woldekiros, lead author and a postdoctoral anthropology researcher in Arts & Sciences at Washington University.

The main wild ancestor of today's chickens, the red junglefowl Gallus gallus is endemic to sub-Himalayan northern India, southern China and Southeast Asia, where chickens were first domesticated 6,000-8,000 years ago. Now nearly ubiquitous around the world, the offspring of these first-domesticated chickens are providing modern researchers with valuable clues to ancient agricultural and trade contacts.

The arrival of chickens in Africa and the routes by which they both entered and dispersed across the continent are not well known. Previous research based on representations of chickens on ceramics and paintings, plus bones from other archaeological sites, suggested that chickens were first introduced to Africa through North Africa, Egypt and the Nile Valley about 2,500 years ago.

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Three new bird species discovered in Africa

Date: November 9, 2016

Source: Texas A&M AgriLife

A Texas A&M University team has discovered three never before documented bird species, and there could well be more, the team's leader said.

Dr. Gary Voelker, professor and curator of birds in the department of wildlife and fisheries sciences at Texas A&M University, College Station, headed the recent discovery of a trio of similar African birds living in close proximity, but that are different species which share no common genes.

Voelker was lead author on an article published recently in the scientific journal Systematics and Biodiversity discussing that discovery.

"The discovery of these three new species is a good example of the amount of potentially hidden diversity living in Afrotropical forests," Voelker said. "Our evidence runs directly counter to the belief of earlier research that said Afrotropical forests are static places where little evolutionary diversification has occurred.

"The areas were referred to as 'museums' of diversity, meaning they believed because many of the birds look similar across their ranges, then they probably were the same species. That's a point we are finding not to be true."

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Hunted to the brink, but Africa’s reviled vultures are vital in fight against disease

Wildlife photojournalist of the year exposes the plight of the endangered scavenger

Robin McKie Observer science editor

Sunday 16 October 2016 00.05 BST


Vultures are rarely viewed as the poster boys and girls of the natural world. They have repulsive eating habits and are strikingly ugly. Nevertheless, they play a critical role in maintaining the ecological health of many parts of the world.

Vultures consume animal carcasses more effectively than any other scavengers and because their digestive juices contain acids that neutralise pathogens such as cholera and rabies they prevent diseases spreading. They act as dead-end hosts for numerous unpleasant ailments. But many ecologists are now warning that vultures across the planet are under serious threat thanks to habitat loss, deliberate and accidental poisoning, and use of the birds’ body parts as traditional medicine cures.

All these risks will be emphasised by British photographer Charlie Hamilton James in a series of images that will be shown as part of the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which opens at the Natural History Museum this week.

His photographs of vultures – and the growing environmental risks that threaten to wipe them out – have won Hamilton James the exhibition’s wildlife photojournalist of the year award.

“I like underdogs,” he said last week. “That is why I like vultures. The trouble is that vultures are now under such stress in the wild – for several reasons. They are facing a massive catastrophe yet they do so much for the environment and do so much to contain disease.”

Vultures are one of the fastest declining groups of animals in the world. In India, all nine species of the bird are threatened with extinction, largely through the indiscriminate use of diclofenac, a common anti-inflammatory drug administered to livestock but which is lethal for the vultures that eat the corpses of cattle.

“There is now a real danger that a disease like rabies will spread because there are hardly any vultures left to clean up corpses left in the open,” Hamilton James said.

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African birds show signs of biasness between biological and step off-springs

3 hours ago

24-08-2016

Washington D.C., Aug. 24 : A recent biological research has found an African desert-dwelling male bird that favours his biological sons and alienates his step-sons.

Martha Nelson, the researcher, said: "Nepotism has likely played a vital role in the evolution of family life in this species."

The species is the southern pied babbler, a black and white bird found in Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

These birds live in groups and chicks are raised by both parents as well as other adult birds. The groups can range in size from three to up to 14 birds.

The group's dominant male bird appears to decide which of the subordinate males to tolerate in the group.

Nelson's research shows subordinate male birds spend less time in a group if they are unrelated to the dominant male bird.

These subordinate male birds are essentially pushed out of the group by their stepdads or in some cases their brothers-in-law. They are then forced to join other groups as subordinates or to live alone.

Over the course of five years in the summer, Nelson observed 45 different groups of southern pied babblers in the Kalahari Desert, walking around with the birds at dawn and dusk.

She also relied on data collected by her co-author Amanda Ridley. Together, the researchers analyzed data from 11 years of observation.

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