The bird, which is similar in size to a hawk and may hunt like one, could be the predator that American researchers found in the famous Hell Creek rock formation. This is the formation that gave rise to many sauropods that lived at the end of the Cretaceous period, 66-68 million years ago. T-RexFrom a TriceratopsUp to
The remains of three birds that lived in this era were examined, two of which were named: A One plus According to the test results published in the magazine. Among the three birds are the lower bones of their legs It survived, and experts were able to extract information about its characteristics based on their examination.
These birds from the end of the Cretaceous were not ancestors of today's modern birds, but only their relatives, members of the Enantiornithes group. The two types mentioned are A magnosavis ecalensis, and avisaurus darwini, The third is also one Advisor–ClassifyDrThis has not been named yet. The three birds were large, that is Advisorthey Its weight exceeded one kilogram, which is consistent with a larger modern falcon. the Magnosaves It must have been the size of a seagull.
the Avisaurus darwini Bones examined
Source: PLOS ONE
Both Advisor Its leg bones show that very strong muscles were attached to it. In addition, the bird was able to bend its ankle joint well, which indicates that it could also handle large prey. They seem to have had a lifestyle similar to today's birds of prey (squid, owl).
Enantiornithes species found at early Cretaceous Asian sites were particularly small, between the size of sparrows and thrushes, but there were also species as small as hummingbirds. However, as is evident from the results just described, in the Late Cretaceous there were already larger creatures, initially the size of a larger parrot, then the size shown now, with a body weight of 1.2 kilograms.
The largest of these was also discovered in the Hell Creek Formation earlier Avisaurus archibaldi It was 1.7 km The finds also testify that at the end of the Cretaceous period, shortly before the wave of extinctions, the diversity of these birds continued to increase, and only an asteroid impact put an end to their prosperity.
