Ancient Birds Evolved Specialist Diving Adaptations

It turns out that ancient birds evolved separate diving techniques. Scientists have taken a closer look at birds from the Cretaceous era and have found that several separate lineages evolved adaptations for diving.

Hesperornithiform birds, which lived at the same time as the dinosaurs, were present in North America, Europe and Asia. Now, scientists have taken a closer look at the fossils of these birds, which date between 65 and 95 million years old, and have conducted a detailed analysis of their evolution, revealing that separate lineages became progressively more adept at diving into water to catch fish.

The Hesperornithiformes are a highly derived but understudied group of primitive birds from the Cretaceous period. This is the first comprehensive phylogenetic analysis to ever be undertaken.

So what did the researchers find? It turns out that the Hesperornithiformes do form a single group. However, within the group the interrelationships of the different taxa are more complex than previously thought. In addition, the anatomical changes that occurred were accompanied by enlargement in overall body size. This increased the lung capacity that was available to the birds to allow for deeper diving.

The findings reveal a bit more about diving birds in general and, more specifically, reveal how they evolved over time. The adaptations that these birds developed make them especially  adept at their watery homes.

The findings are published in the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology.

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