Ancient bird fossil offers clues to bird brain evolution

Archaeopteryx is the first bird-like dinosaur we know of. It lived 150 million years ago, but researchers don’t know much about how bird brains have evolved from then to today.

An 80-million-year-old bird from the Mesozoic era is now helping to fill in the gaps. It is called Navaornis hestiae. Researchers discovered a fossil of this species previously unknown to science in Brazil in 2016. This specimen has a remarkably well-preserved skull, which a team of paleontologists used to digitally reconstruct the bird’s brain. The researchers recently published their findings in the journal Nature.

Ira speaks with one of the lead authors of the study, Dr. Luis Chiappe, a paleontologist and curator at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County in California.

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