Archaeopteryx is the earliest bird-like dinosaur that we know of. It lived 150 million years ago, but researchers don’t know much about how the bird brain evolved from then to now.
An 80 million-year-old bird from the Mesozoic Era is now helping fill in the blanks. It’s called Navaornis hestiae. Researchers uncovered a fossil of this species, which was previously unknown to science, in Brazil in 2016. That specimen has a remarkably well-preserved skull, which a team of paleontologists used to digitally reconstruct the bird’s brain. The researchers recently reported their findings in the journal Nature.
Ira talks with a lead author of the study, Dr. Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist and curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California.
Further Reading
- Read further coverage of the Navaornis skeleton and what it means via NPR.
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Segment Guests
Luis Chiappe
Dr. Luis Chiappe is a paleontologist and curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in Los Angeles, California.
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