Large theropod footprint with the small bird tracks upper left
Paleontologists working in the British Columbia interior in west coast Canada, have made a fascinating discovery this week.
The researchers found a large rock slab from the mountainous area around the Peace River showing what appeared to be tracks from a meat-eating theropod Allosaurus dinosaur.
The slab was sent to the Peace Region Paleontology Research Centre in Tumbler Ridge, B.C, for closer examination. There, beside the larger dinosaur tracks, they found four tiny tracks likely belonging to shore birds
Tumbler Ridge paleontologist Lisa Buckley says “[These were] little birds that would have looked a heck of a lot like the sandpipers, the plovers, and even larger wading birds like storks and herons and ibises”.
The canyon where the slab was found has rocks about 140 million years old, making these possibly the oldest bird tracks in the world.
The mountains and canyons around Tumbler Ridge are already well known for its fossils and dinosaur tracks. These include a footprint left by a Sauropod, the largest dinosaur to live on land, and multiple tracks left by theropod and ornithopod dinosaurs.
Also this week, researchers in Australia have found bird tracks dating back to about 105 million years. The tracks were found in sandstone at a place called Dinosaur Cove in the state of Victoria.
They surmise that the tracks were made by two birds about the size of a present day great egret (approx. a metre in length).
Dr Anthony Martin, a paleontologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia in the USA, says it shows there were sizeable flying birds living alongside other dinosaurs over 100 million years ago.
One of the best records of the dinosaur-bird connection has come from discoveries in Liaoning province of Northeastern China, including fossils of non-avian dinosaurs with feathers.
Samples of amber have also been found in Liaoning, containing preserved feathers from both birds and non-avian dinosaurs going back to the Cretaceous period.
(with files from CBC)
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