Fossil evidence of avian crops from the Early Cretaceous of China

The crop is characteristic of seed-eating birds today, yet little is known about its early history despite remarkable discoveries of many Mesozoic seed-eating birds in the past decade. Here we report the discovery of some early fossil evidence for the presence of a crop in birds. Two Early Cretaceou...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS 2011-09, Vol.108 (38), p.15904-15907
Main Authors: Zheng, Xiaoting, Martin, Larry D, Zhou, Zhonghe, Burnham, David A, Zhang, Fucheng, Miao, Desui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Physiological
Angiosperms
Animals
Biological Evolution
Biological Sciences
Birds
Birds - anatomy & histology
Birds - classification
Birds - physiology
Birds of prey
Bone and Bones - anatomy & histology
China
Crop, Avian - anatomy & histology
Crop, Avian - physiology
Crops
Diet
Digestive system
Dinosaurs
Fossils
Gizzard
Phylogenetics
phylogeny
Plants
seed predation
Seeds
Skeleton
Species Specificity
Stomach
Taxa
teeth
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Summary:The crop is characteristic of seed-eating birds today, yet little is known about its early history despite remarkable discoveries of many Mesozoic seed-eating birds in the past decade. Here we report the discovery of some early fossil evidence for the presence of a crop in birds. Two Early Cretaceous birds, the basal ornithurine Hongshanornis and a basal avian Sapeornis, demonstrate that an essentially modern avian digestive system formed early in avian evolution. The discovery of a crop in two phylogenetically remote lineages of Early Cretaceous birds and its absence in most intervening forms indicates that it was independently acquired as a specialized seed-eating adaptation. Finally, the reduction or loss of teeth in the forms showing seed-filled crops suggests that granivory was possibly one of the factors that resulted in the reduction of teeth in early birds.
ISSN:0027-8424
1091-6490
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1112694108