Bird-Watching

Paleontologists have found an extremely well-preserved fossil of the oldest known bird species with a beak an upturned bill resembling Woody Woodpecker’s. The 130-million-year-old crow-sized Confuciusornis dui was discovered last year in ancient lake sediment in China, so exquisitely preserved that impressions of its feathers are clearly visible. The creature’s beak was an advanced trait for its time, but the back of the bird’s skull is primitive, with two openings behind the eyes that are a throwback to dinosaurs. “What you’ve got,” said Larry D. Martin, curator at the University of Kansas Museum of Natural History, “is a modern car engine hood on the rear end of a Model T.”