Joel Kontinen
This tiny head, 14 millimetres long (including the beak), belongs to one of the smallest dinosaurs ever found. Entombed in amber for 99 million years - this is the standard view of birds or animals trapped in amber found in Myanmar. This creature belonged to the group of dinosaurs that according to evolutionists gave rise to modern birds.
The fossil, discovered in Myanmar, has been christened Oculudentavis khaungraae, or “eye-tooth bird.” It has large eye sockets on the sides of its head like modern lizards, and its eyes have narrow openings that limit incoming light. That’s a strong hint that the animal was active during the day.
Oculudentavis’s upper and lower jaws are full of sharp teeth—the most found on any ancestral bird—which implies that it was a predator that likely ate insects and other small invertebrates, researchers report recently in Nature. They think the species tiny size is an example of “island dwarfism,” as it likely inhabited an arc of islands that existed where Myanmar is today.
Without the rest of the body, the scientists can’t tell exactly how Oculudentavis is related to other birdlike dinosaurs—or whether it could fly. But they suspect it belongs to a group of relatively primitive birds, perhaps similar to Archaeopteryx and Jeholornis , species that lived between 150 million and 120 million ago years the researchers of a new study said.
Source:
Vogel, Gretchen. 2020. Head of tiny dinosaur found trapped in amber Science 11 March
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