Picathartes: The Bird Evolution Forgot for “44 Million Years”

White-necked Rockfowl (Picathartes gymnocephalus). Image courtesy of Michael Andersen. Creative Commons (CC BY 2.0).




Joel Kontinen

The list of living fossils keeps on getting longer and longer.

BBC Earth just published an article and a short video of a West African bird that hasn’t changed in “44 million years.”

The Picathartes lives on the shore of the River Congo. The male and female build a mud nest together, sheltered from the rain by a big boulder.

And they behave just like birds that aren’t supposedly so old.

Living fossils suggest strongly that the millions of years the popular media are so fond of are pure fiction.

Source:

Walker, Matt. 2016. Bird survives for 44 million years. BBC Earth (17 December).