Jurassic bird fossils found in Fujian rewrite history of avian evolution
By YAN DONGJIE and HU MEIDONG in Fuzhou | CHINA DAILY | Updated: 2025-02-14 07:10 An illustration shows the reconstructed image of the Jurassic bird species named Baminornis zhenghensis. XINHUA A set of fossils discovered in East China's Fujian province has been identified as the only known unambiguous record of Jurassic birds, pushing back the origin of birds to the late Middle Jurassic period and rewriting the history of avian evolution. After a year of restoration and research, a joint team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Fujian Institute of Geological Survey confirmed that the set of fossils discovered in November 2023 in Daxi village of Fujian's Zhenghe county belong to a bird from the late Middle Jurassic period, dating back approximately 150 million years. Its fossils display a unique combination of features including birdlike shoulder and pelvic girdles as well as a hand structure resembling that of nonavian dinosaurs, according to the CAS.
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