Dating back more than 65m years, specimen’s mobile palate challenges understanding of avian evolution
Fossil experts have cooked the goose of a key tenet in avian evolution after finding a premodern bird from more than 65m years ago that could move its beak like modern fowl.
The toothy animal was discovered in the 1990s by an amateur fossil collector at a quarry in Belgium and dates to about 66.7m years ago – shortly before the asteroid strike that wiped out non-avian dinosaurs.