New Bird Fossil

The saying "finds happen either at the beginning or the end of the field season" is absolutely true. On one of the last field days, a school was out with us and discovered the remains of a marine bird. Currently the fossil remains consist of 4 vertebrae (backbones) and possibly a rib. Although the remains seem small (2.5cm in length), this is a large size for birds. This specimen is from the genus Hesperornis as shown above and was anywhere from 1-1.5m in length. Pretty big for a bird. Unfortunately due to the lateness of the season the specimen will have to wait to be excavated at the beginning of next field season.

Comments

superstar said…
good picture
Curator said…
The previous image was uploaded by mistake. My apologies.