Copying others can help young orangutans build a broad diet

 

Copying others can help young orangutans build a broad diet

Image courtesy of Guilhem Duvot, SUAQ Project

Joel Kontinen

According to evolution,  orangutans  are almost human,  so they are able to copy some of the traits of humans and from other apes. But animal intelligence is not something we would smirk at. Some birds are intelligent than apes. 

Young orangutans acquire a substantial body of knowledge before they can survive independently, which they must do by the time they are 8.5 years old. This includes understanding what foods are safe to eat, where to fi intelligrent than apes. nd them and how to process them in a rainforest offering hundreds of food options of varying levels of accessibility – from easy-to-access leaves to the more inaccessible but also manimal ore nutritious seeds at the heart of a tough, spiny neesia fruit.

The findings suggest that orangutans have different strategies for developing broad survival skills, says Revathe Thillaikumar at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior in Germany.

Scientists already know that orangutans can acquire this knowledge both by observing their mothers and other individuals in their social circle – a process known as social learning – and by exploring entirely on their own without any input from others, which is known as individual learning. But how these two forms of learning work together – and how they affect what orangutans learn to eat before becoming independent – hasn’t been clear.

To find out, Thillaikumar and her colleagues analysed nearly 7000 instances of learning recorded during more than 1700 hours of observations of wild Sumatran orangutans at Suaq Balimbing, a research station in Indonesia.

Youngsters who learned by watching others also tended to continue manipulating new objects or trying new foods for about 145 minutes after they had closely observed another orangutan. This activity is reminiscent of the way in which children will spend time imitating an activity they have just seen demonstrated by an adult, says Thillaikumar. “Yeah, it’s practice.”

Source:

Christa Lesté-Lasserre 2026 Copying others can help young orangutans build a broad diet | New Scientist 24 September 

Archaeopteryx, one of the world's first proto birds, has a set of weird, never-before-seen features

 

Illustration by Ville Sinkkonen

Joel Kontinen

Some evolutionist think that Archaeopteryx is a a proto bird that is one the way to being a real bird. But that’s not the way these animals become birds. This is what told Live Science says  about this:

Iconic transition species between dinosaurs and birds may have had weird 'teeth' on roof of its mouth and a highly mobile tongue, study reveals searchers have uncovered an intriguing set of never-before-seen features in the skull of Archaeopteryx, an iconic dinosaur that is considered a key transitional fossil in the evolution of birds, a new study reports.

The features — which are absent in nonflying dinosaurs but are widespread in living birds — may have enabled Archaeopteryx to acquire, manipulate and process food more efficiently, the research team proposed in the study, which was published Feb. 2 in the journal The Innovation.

The newly discovered features include a tiny bone that indicates Archaeopteryx had a highly mobile tongue. The researchers also identified "weird" soft tissue traces interpret but this is qhat science daily ed as oral papillae — small, tooth-like projections on the roof of the mouth, Jingmai O'Connor, an associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum in Chicago and lead author of the study, in an email. Finally, the team found "unusual" openings near the tip of Archaeopteryx's jaw that suggest a nerve-rich structure and may represent an early analogue of what is known as a bill-tip organ in modern birds.

he identification of these features in Archaeopteryx marks their earliest known appearance in the fossil record, according to the study, suggesting these characteristics evolved during or close to the emergence of avian dinosaurs — known as birds — which is thought to have occurred during the Late Jurassic period (roughly 161.5 million to 143 million years ago). he identification of these features in Archaeopteryx marks their earliest known appearance in the fossil record, according to the study, suggesting these characteristics evolved during or close to the emergence of avian dinosaurs — known as birds — which is thought to have occurred during the Late Jurassic period (roughly 161.5 million to 143 million years ago).

Modern birds are the only dinosaur lineage that survived the mass extinction event 66 million years ago. Archaeopteryx, which lived around 150 million years ago in what is now Germany, is among the oldest — if not the earliest — known dinosaur that can also be considered a bird under a broad definition, although it was probably not the first bird to evolve, O'Connor said.

Furthermore, Archaeopteryx is unlikely to have been a direct ancestor of modern birds, research suggests. According to O'Connor, Archaeopteryx represents the earliest known dinosaur with good evidence for active, feather-driven flight, although this was likely limited to brief, powered bursts

Source: 

 Aristos Georgiou 2026 Archaeopteryx, one of the world's first proto birds, has a set of weird, never-before-seen features, new study reveals | Live Science February 13

 

 

 

Tiny predatory dinosaur weighed less than a chicken

 

Reconstruction of Alnashetri cerropoliciensis. Image courtesy of Gabriel Díaz Yantén, Universidad Nacional de Río Negro.

Joel Kontinen

Not all dinosaurs were big, some were relatively small. They weighed less than a small chicken.  

The 95-million-year-old fossil of Alnashetri cerropoliciensis was found at the La Buitrera site in northern Patagonia, Argentina, in 2014.

The first specimen of Alnashetri, found in 2012, was a set of incomplete hindlimb bones, says Peter Makovicky at the University of Minnesota, who was part of the study on the new fossil. With only fragmentary remains, it was impossible to say more than that it was probably an Alvarezsaur. “We were not even sure if it was a juvenile or fully grown,” he says.

“With a whole skeleton, we suddenly had all the information to understand how Alnashetri was similar or differed from other species, and a key to understanding how the unusual anatomy of Alvarezsaurs evolved,” says Makovicky.

The new fossil has very long, slender hind limbs and surprisingly long forelimbs that retain three well-developed fingers. Detailed analysis of the fossil bones revealed the dinosaur was an adult and at least 4 years old.

Alvarezsaurs were once thought to be early ancestors of birds. However, it is now clear that, while Alnashetri might have had some superficial resemblance to a bird, it and all the Alvarezsaurs were, in fact, non-avian theropods. “The new discovery certainly underscores this,” says Mackovicky.

Some evolutionists think that dinosaurs have been descended from birds.

Previously, it was thought that all the tiny alvarezsaurs had very short, stout forelimbs with a large thumb but shrunken side digits, and tiny teeth. Palaeontologists thought these anatomical features evolved alongside their shrinking body size because they only ate ants and termites, says Makovicky. “But Alnashetri does not fit that mould – it is among the smaller Alvarezsaurs, but neither its teeth nor its forelimbs are reduced, because it represents a much earlier branch on the Alvarezsaur evolutionary tree.”

In fact, its forearms are more typical of other Theropods rather than a specialist ant-eater, he says. “Alnashetri is tiny but is otherwise built like a more typical Theropod – given its small size, it probably ate its fair share of invertebrates, but probably had a wider range of prey.”

That means palaeontologists still don’t fully understand why these dinosaurs became so small. “We’re left with only a vaguer sense that Alvarezsaurs were successful at occupying the niches of very small predators,” says Mackovicky.

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Tiny predatory dinosaur weighed less than a chicken | New Scientist 25 February 

We may finally know why birds sing at dawn

 

Zebra finches are commonly studied in captivity by biologists. Image courtesy of Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Why do birds sing in the morning?  Perhaps they like to sing at that time of day.  God has given us much pleasure in nature.  

Birds all over the world break into a dawn chorus every morning – now experiments in zebra finches suggest both a mechanistic and a functional explanation for this phenomenon.

The dawn chorus of birdsong has inspired poets and nature lovers for thousands of years, but the reason why birds all over the world start the day this way is an enduring mystery.

Now, a series of experiments in zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) suggests that while darkness inhibits singing, birds build up a stronger motivation to sing in the night that causes them to burst into song when the dawn breaks. The study also hints that a morning workout for the vocal muscles helps birds finesse their songs.

 Source:

James Woodford 2025 We may finally know why birds sing at dawn | New Scientist 24 October

Budgie brains have a map of vocal sounds just like humans

 

Image courtesy of BROKER.com / Alamy

Joel Kontinen

Recordings of brain activity in budgerigars reveal sets of brain cells that represent different sounds like keys on a keyboard – a structure never seen before in any bird brain

According to evolutionists, some birds have vocal sounds just like humans, but this does not mean that they are like humans. In their view, chimps are most clearly related to humans.

”Budgerigars are some of the chattiest birds, and that is reflected in their brains. Budgie brains contain a map of the vocal sounds, which is similar to that found in the human brain and has not been seen in any other bird.

“We found that there was a representation of vocal sounds in a part of the brain that is analogous to a key speech region.”

Source:

 Michael Marshall 2025 Budgie brains have a map of vocal sounds just like humans | New Scientist 19 March

See the fluorescing tail feathers of a male emperor bird-of-paradise

Birds-of-paradise are known for their bright colours and courtship displays. Now, it turns out that many species also have body parts that fluoresce

Image courtesy of American Museum of Natural History

Joel Kontinen

”This striking plume of yellow is the fluorescing tail feathers of a male emperor bird-of-paradise (Paradisaea guilielmi). Birds-of-paradise are known for their bright colours and courtship displays. Now, it turns out that many species also fluoresce – absorbing light and re-emitting it at lower-energy wavelengths. Fluorescent patches are found in body parts used during courtship, like tail feathers and bills.”

When God  make the birds, He formed some of them beautiful, as can be said in this instance.

Source:

See the fluorescing tail feathers of a male emperor bird-of-paradise | New Scientist

12 February 2025 

Beak fossil upends bird evolutionary tree

 

Joel Kontinen

Darwinians do not know how birds evolved. now, a 57 —million— years old beak has written the tree of life of birds again. They say that most modern birds have   “flexible bony palates that allow them to move their upper beak independently of their skull.”

Only a few species, like emus, ostriches and kiwis — have fused palates and fixed beaks, They assumed that all modern birds like these, But a tiny bone suggests that flexiblejaws came first,  

Source: 

 

Benito, Juan et al. 2022, Cretaceous ornithurine supports a neognathous crown bird ancestor, Nature 612, 100–105.flexible jaws came first.   

Little bird was a lizard, evolutionist say

 

Image courtesy of Lida Xing, Fair use dialogue.

Joel Kontinen

Last year,  a tiny fossil became big news. Trapped inside ancient amber, scientists thought they'd found the skull of a minuscule, hummingbird-like dinosaur with pointy teeth, bulging eyes, and surprisingly robust bones.

It was like no ancient bird or dinosaur ever discovered before. That's because it was actually neither.

Here’s what I wrote about it then: 

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.

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  years ago the researchers of a new study said.

However, this is all wrong. it was not a dinosaur but a lizard, “A similar skeleton found in the same area now suggests the so-called "eye tooth bird" (Oculudentavis khaungraae) is, in reality, a lizard. Its long snout had simply been squashed over time so that it resembled more of a beak..”

"Imagine taking a lizard and pinching its nose into a triangular shape," explains Edward Stanley, director of the Florida Museum of Natural History. 

Source:

 Cassella,  Carly 2021. Once Mistaken For a Tiny Bird With Teeth, This Fossil Is Now Officially a Lizard Science Alert 15.June..

 

Bird Song Can Explain The Evolution Of Human Language

 

Image courtesy of Sławomir Staszczuk, CC BY-SA 3.0. 

Joel Kontinen

Language is one of the most notable abilities humans have. It allows us to express complex meanings and transmit knowledge from generation to generation. An important question in human biology is how this ability ended up being developed. in the evolutionary way.  

 In the study, the authors show how the activity of glutamate tends to promote the release of dopamine in the striatum, an evolutionary old brain structure important for reward-based learning and motor output. “In adult songbirds, the increase in dopamine release in this striatal area is correlated with the learning of a more restricted song, which replaces experimental vocalizations typical of young birds”. “Regarding human beings and other mammals” —–the authors add—, “dopamine release in the dorsal striatum promotes restrictive and repetitive motor outputs, such as vocalizations, while other more experimental and exploratory behaviours are supported by the dopaminergic activity of the ventral striatum”.

According to the study, many of the glutamatergic signalling genes that have changed in recent human evolution code for receptors that reduce the excitation of the dorsal striatum. Meanwhile, these receptors tend not to reduce activity, and even promote, the dopamine release, in ventral striatal regions.

 This is just another example of evolutionary storytelling. Birds are birds and humans are humans.

 Source:  

 University of Barcelona. 2021,"What does the study of domesticated birds tell us about the evolution of human language? Looking for keys of the human language evolution in bird singing.. Science Daily, 19 April. .

An Organ That Helps Birds Detect Sounds

Image courtesy of the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust, public domain

Joel Kontinen 

Joel Kontinen

An organ that allows some birds to detect the movement of hidden prey by plunging their beaks into the ground seems to have been present in early birds 70 million years ago, and probably first appeared in their dinosaur ancestors.

It probably arose during the fall of man, when animals were also affected and diseased.

Special “remote touch” sensory receptors known as Herbst corpuscles, which are found within densely packed pits in the beak’s tip, help birds detect the movement of worms in soil or small fish in water – even several centimetres away from the beak. This effectively gives birds a “sixth sense”, according to Carla du Toit at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and her colleagues.

To work out when the sixth sense evolved, du Toit and her colleagues studied the beaks of hundreds of modern and ancient birds,  including four species of lithornithids, an extinct group of birds that lived alongside dinosaurs during the Cretaceous period.

Lithornithids belong to one of the two major types of birds alive today, the palaeognaths, which include kiwis, ostriches and emus.  The other major group is the neognaths.

By examining specimens of modern birds, the researchers identified distinct pitting patterns in the beak associated with Herbst corpuscles, says du Toit. The team then found those same patterns in lithornithid fossil beaks, which suggests that lithornithids had the same sensory abilities and were probe-foraging birds.

The discovery makes sense because Herbst corpuscles are found in both palaeognaths and neognaths. The two groups separated from one another more than “70 million years” ago, which would suggest that Herbst corpuscles evolved in the common ancestor of both bird groups.

That millions of years is based on not taking the Noah’s Flood into consideration.

In fact, the sensory structures might have evolved in dinosaurs, says du Toit. A “sixth sense” feature might have helped carnivorous theropods such as Neovenator find prey by probing their snouts into mud or murky water, she says.

The researchers hope in future to find if the pitting was present in the beaks of an ancient group of winged reptiles, the pterosaurs. However, the poor quality of most fossils make such an analysis difficult, says du Toit.

Source:

Lesté-Lasserre, Christa. 2020.  Bird beak extra sense evolved more than 70 million years ago.  New Scientist 2 December

New Evidence Hurts Feathered Dinosaur Theory

Image courtesy of Elsevier Inc. Yosef Kiat, Amir Balaban, Nir Sapir, Jingmai Kathleen O’Connor, Min Wang, Xing Xu. Current Biology. Fair use doctrine.

 

Joel Kontinen

 

Is a dinosaur still a dinosaur if it has flight feathers? A new study points to some fascinating evidence that contradicts the idea of feathered dinosaurs and confirms created kinds.

 Genesis asserts that God created creatures to reproduce according to kinds. Evolution attacks this teaching by insisting that nature evolved creatures to reproduce between different kinds. Studies like this one that take birds with wings—and creatures that have bird-specific molt strategies like Microraptor —and name them as dinosaurs essentially erode confidence in the Bible’s very first chapter.

The article also  states that a bird called a Microraptor Tthat shed its wings 100 million years ago .

 It’s no secret that birds fly in order to, among other reasons, get food and avoid becoming food. For that, they must have their feathers arranged in good order. But feathers wear out. If birds replaced their feathers haphazardly, for example, too many feathers shed from one wing and not the other, then they would lose control in flight—with lethal consequences. Therefore, many flying birds molt—replace their feathers—in a specific sequence. New research has identified evidence of this sequential molting in a so-called “feathered dinosaur."

A team of Israeli and Chinese scientists published their technical results in Current Biology. After collecting wing molt data from over 300 birds, they found that “there is not a single flightless bird species that molts its primary feathers sequentially.”¹ Since these birds don’t need to fly, they have no need to replace vital flight feathers in an orderly way. So sequential molting is specific to flying (as opposed to running or swimming) birds.

The team also noted evidence for sequential molting in a fossil from China called r. In keeping with the technical literature and popular descriptions of this extinct creature, the study authors referred to it as a “feathered dinosaur." Microraptor flew uniquely, using four wings instead of just two—two wings up front, plus two small wings on each of its hind limbs. That doesn’t make it a dinosaur at all. Why not just call it a four-winged bird?

Clear and classic anatomy refutes this new wave of including birds among dinosaurs. All dinosaurs have an open hip socket. Birds don’t. For all we know, Microraptor  had a closed hip socket, unlike dinosaurs. It would be more thorough if researchers would focus on that important detail, but instead they focus on the Microraptor’s aspects that seem to resemble dinosaurs, like their long tails and teeth.

Microraptor presents an interesting, new feature. Fossil specimen IVPP V-13352 shows a clear gap between two primary flight feathers that looks just like the gap seen in modern flying birds that use sequential molting. This creature had bird-like feathers—even flight-specific feathers—to go with its flight-ready body shape. Now, researchers are saying that it molted like a flying bird. What else does one need to call it a bird instead of a reptile?

In other words: dinosaurs were dinosaurs and birds are birds.

 

Source:

Thomas, Brian. 2020.  New Evidence Hurts Feathered Dinosaur Theory,  ICR  org 9 September

Tiny Bird Found In Amber In Myanmar

Image courtesy of Lida Xing, Fair use dialogue.




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

The parrots that understand probabilities

A kea,image courtesy of Markus Koljonen, CC-BY-SA-2.5.




Joel Kontinen

According to evolution, chimps should be next to humans as learners. However, a new video shows that The New Zealand kea can outperform monkeys in several intelligence tests

A group of kea, a type of parrot from New Zealand, have been surprising scientists with their smart predictions. Researchers set them a series of intelligence tests based around probabilities and social cues. They found that kea can perform better than chimps .




The parrots that understand probabilities Nature video.

Rare Bird Found in America,Throws Light on Dino-Era Birds.

An earlier example of an enantiornithine. Image courtesy of Durbed, CC BY-SA 3.0.


Joel Kontinen

A 75-million-year-old fossil, from a bird about the size of a turkey vulture, is the most complete skeleton. Discovered in North America of what are called enantiornithines, it lived with dinoes.

“It is quite likely that, if you saw one in real life and just glanced at it, you wouldn’t be able to distinguish it from a modern bird,” Study participant Jessie Atterholt said.

She went on to say: “That by the late Cretaceous, enantiornithines had evolved advanced adaptations for flying independent of today’s birds. In fact, they looked quite similar to modern birds: they were fully feathered and flew by flapping their wings like modern birds. The fossilized bird probably had teeth in the front of its beak and claws on its wings as well as feet. Some enantiornithines had prominent tail feathers that may have differed between male and female and been used for sexual display.”

“These rough patches are quill knobs, and in modern birds they anchor the wing feathers to the skeleton to help strengthen them for active flight. This is the first discovery of quill knobs in any enantiornithine bird, which tells us that it was a very strong flier.”

How could these birds become extinct, DINO-Era birds showed just the opposite? They’ve drove with the dinoes, but then they vanished away.

Source:

Sanders, Robert 2018. Rare Fossil Bird Deepens Mystery of Avian Extinctions. Berkeley.edu (13 November)

Duck-Sized Dino-Era Bird Found in China

Image courtesy of Dongyu Hu et al., 2018. A bony-crested Jurassic dinosaur with evidence of iridescent plumage highlights complexity in early paravian evolution. Nature Communications 9, 217.





Joel Kontinen

It has asymmetrical feathers like modern birds. It is iridescence and colourful, just like today’s hummingbirds.

And Caihong juji ('rainbow with the big crest'), made public yesterday in a paper in the journal Nature Communications, is assumed to be 161 million years old but as its preservation is “incredible” the age might well be nothing more than wishful thinking.

Modern pigment has previously been reported in a ”150-million-year” old bird fossil, and birds are known to have flown over the heads of dinosaurs.

The authors describe C. juji as a dinosaur, though it probably looked even less like a dino than Archaeopteryx, the “earliest” true bird, which is believed to be or “10 million years” younger.

There is something fishy about its recent past. Discovered by a farmer in China's Hebei Province, the Paleontological Museum of Liaoning bought it in 2014.

In biblical archaeology, objects found by amateurs are almost always dismissed as frauds.

But when it has to do with evolution, the standard is obviously much lower.

C. juji has some mosaic-like features and some unique ones, such as asymmetrical feathers in its tail.

However, these would hardly make it into a dinosaur.

Source:

Geggel, Laura. 2018. Little 'Rainbow' Dinosaur Discovered by Farmer in China. Live Science (15 January).

Jumping Parrots Inspire Origin of Flight Storytelling

Pacific Parrotlets. Image courtesy of markaharper1, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).





Joel Kontinen

When it comes to watching what birds do, it’s a small step from operational science to a just so story about how dinosaurs learnt to fly.

Here’s the latest version, courtesy of the journal Science:

“If you’ve ever watched a bird hop from branch to branch in search of food, you’ve caught a glimpse at how prehistoric flying dinosaurs foraged among forest trees.”

Here’s their "proof":

“That’s what researchers are saying after they trained four Pacific parrotlets (Forpus coelestis)—small, pastel-colored parrots about 13 centimeters long—to jump and fly for millet seed rewards. The researchers designed a cage decked out with perches that doubled as sensors to measure the birds’ leg forces, and surrounded the cages with high-speed cameras to study the birds’ wing beats as they moved between branches.”

If the next branch was near, the parrot jumped. If it was a bit further, it jumped and flapped its wings.

Then, the researchers used this data to figure out how some extinct birds that they define as “birdlike dinosaurs” took to the air:

“Archaeopteryx and Microraptor —feathered dinosaurs that likely flew or glided between trees—would have had the most success at boosting the range of their long jumps by 20%. The larger and heavier feathered dinosaurs Protarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx would not have been able to generate enough force from a wing beat to support their body weight or significantly increase their long jumps. The scientists surmise that Archaeopteryx developed an edge over other tree-foraging competitors by using their jumping and wing flapping to minimize energy expenditure while foraging for food in their trees. Thus, long jump Olympians of the Archaeopteryx world may have spurred the evolution of flight.”

The problem with this scenario is that it is pure Darwinian storytelling that sees birds evolving from dinosaurs.

Several studies suggest that birds and dinosaurs lived at the same time.

In addition, Archaeopteryx had the flight feathers of modern birds.

Source:

Cross, Ryan. 2017. Watch these tiny parrots reveal how dinosaurs may have learned to fly. Science (17 May).

More Trouble for the Dino-to-Bird Hypothesis: Modern Traits in Mesozoic Bird

Hongshanornis longicresta supposedly lived 124 million years ago, yet looks like a modern bird. Image courtesy of Chiappe et al. 2014. A new specimen of the Early Cretaceous bird Hongshanornis longicresta: insights into the aerodynamics and diet of a basal ornithuromorph. PeerJ 2:e234, Creative Commons (CC BY 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Dino-era birds were real birds much earlier than evolutionists once thought. A fossil and other remains of a “120 million year old” bird found in China included a pellet that was full of fish bones.

Here’s the gist of the story, courtesy of Science Daily:

“About 120 million years ago, a bird dunked its beak into the water, caught a fish and, after digesting the meal, coughed up a pellet full of fish bones. The bird died moments later, but now its fossils are the oldest evidence of a bird pellet on record, a new study reported.”

The discovery suggests that at least some birds have had very modern bird-like traits and habits for far longer than researchers previously thought:

“The pellet — the first that is unambiguously from a bird that lived during the Mesozoic, the age of the dinosaurs — indicates that the ancient bird had a two-chambered stomach, much like birds do today, the researchers said.

Modern-day birds, including many birds of prey, produce pellets made up of indigestible material, such as bones, hair and feathers.”

Several other studies likewise corroborate the non-evolution of birds. For instance, a “130-million-year-old” wading bird looks very modern. Bird feathers haven’t evolved in ”100 million years,” wings trapped in amber suggest.

At least some ancient birds “performed aerodynamic feats in a fashion similar to those of many living birds,” Science Daily suggested in 2015.

It seems that the dino-to-bird hypothesis is in big trouble. (Read more here and here.)

Source:

Geggel, Laura. 2016. Ancient Bird Coughed Up 'Fishy' Pellet 120 Million Years Ago. Live Science (28 October).

Amazing Swifts Fly 10 Months Without Landing

Fly me to the Moon – and back, seven times. Image courtesy of Paweł Kuźnia, Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).




Joel Kontinen

Swifts spend a lot of time in the air, perhaps more than any other birds.

Each year, the common swift (Apus apus) roosts two months in Europe and then flies off to Africa.

Researchers at the University of Lund in Sweden fitted seven common swifts with lightweight data loggers and monitored their travels for two years.

Three of the birds stayed in the air for 10 months, and the others landed occasionally but very briefly, “never for more than half a per cent of the total time of their migratory periods,” says Anders Hedenström, who with his colleagues published their research in the journal Current Biology.

Hedenström thinks that the swifts might take power naps in the air. As they can live for 20 years, during their lifetime they probably travel a distance that equals 7 times to the moon and back.

So, what is the Darwinian explanation for such behaviour? There probably isn’t one.

Birds are a big problem for evolutionists. While they have made much of Darwin’s finches, the birds themselves do not conform to Darwinian expectations.

Many other species and traits cause additional problems, for instance starling murmurations, anti-crash systems, cooling beaks and anti-freeze.

What is more, birds such as robins, hummingbirds, cockatoos and bowerbirds display many signs of very intelligent design that cannot be explained away by evolutionary storytelling.

And bird migration refutes the local flood hypothesis.




Source:

Coghlan, Andy. 2016. Swifts break record by staying aloft for 10 months at a time. New Scientist (27 October).

"Modern" Pigment Found in ”150 Million Year” Old Bird Fossil

Image courtesy of Kumiko, Tokyo, Japan. Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0).



Joel Kontinen

The dino-to-bird hypothesis puts feathers on dinosaurs and obviously also classifies some feathered birds as dinos. This might well be the case with Anchiornis huxleyi that is described as a “bird-like dinosaur.”

The first feathered dinosaur Archaeoraptor liaoningensis graced the cover of National Geographic. A few months later it was found to be a hoax.

In 2013, the journal Science called for stricter scrutiny for Chinese fossils, as Archaeoraptor might not have been the only forgery that made its way into science publications.

This time, researchers reported on finding pigments and melanosomes in a fossil believed to be “150 million years” old.

Melanosomes produce the melanin pigment.

Research conducted at Brown University seems to show that they have indeed found melanosomes:

“The team performed two different kinds of chemical analyses to see if they could detect animal eumelanin pigment. They used both time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry and infrared reflectance spectroscopy to discern the molecular signature of melanin in the samples. They compared those observed signatures with the signatures of modern-day animal eumelanin. The melanins were virtually identical, except for minor contributions from sulfur in the fossil, Carney said.”

Ryan Carney is the co-author of their report published in the journal Scientific Reports.

So, they are willing to believe that melanin can remain virtually unchanged of 150 million years. One thing that they will not question is the purported age of the fossil, because evolution desperately needs time.

For the same reason, they might not be leaping for joy on hearing about radiocarbon (C-14) in dinosaur bone or in diamonds.

Source:

Brown University. 2015). Pigments, organelles persist in fossil feathers: Shed light on original coloration of long-lost animals. ScienceDaily. (27 August).

Leading Bird Expert Shoots Down Feathered Dinosaurs

Famous ornithologist does not see feathers in dinosaurs.





Joel Kontinen

Feathered dinosaurs have become a Darwinian dogma that few have dared to question.

Alan Fedducia, an emeritus professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, takes a very critical approach to this view that he describes as a dogma and current orthodoxy. He does not believe that modern birds evolved from dinosaurs.

Writing in this week’s New Scientist, Fedducia says that the fossil evidence does not support this dogma. He says that many researchers have interpreted fossils found in China as ”feathered dinosaurs” despite the evidence that does not support their view.

Some of the fossils, for instance Sinosauropteryx, have according to Fedducia been dinosaurs that have lacked feathers. Some have been early birds with true feathers.

“If it has feathers and avian flight wings, it's a bird!” he says.

Professor Fedducia suggests that researchers might repeat the mistake of the 19th century ornithologists, who assumed that modern birds evolved from big flightless birds like the ostrich.

However, rather than evolving, flightless birds have devolved or lost the ability to fly.

In other words, the current dogma causes Darwinists to see what they expect to see (feathers), just like some who believe they have seen a UFO although they saw something else.

Source:

Fedducia, Alan. 2012. Is it a bird? Is it a dinosaur? New Scientist 2862, 28-29.