Friday, 14 October 2016

Honking with Dinosaurs


New evidence from a 66 million year old fossil (Vegavis iaai) from Vega island in the Antarctic confirms that this contemporary of the Cretaceous dinosaurs had the syrinx which enables birds to produce song (https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/oct/12/oldest-fossil-of-birds-voicebox-gives-new-hint-at-soundscape-of-the-cretaceous-syrinx). This long-legged, goose-like bird existed at the same time as the mighty reptiles. Their sounds may certainly have punctuated the Cretaceous and the possibly exists that some of the dinosaurs (closely-related to birds) also had a syrinx to generate calls.

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Birder's Bonus 241

Noted a Curlew ( Numenius arquata ) on the Loughor estuary at Bynea.