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A New, Prehistoric Fossil Sheds Light on How Birds Took to the Skies

The bird's fossil was found with its 3D structure intact — a rare find that helped paleontologists glean insights into the development of flight.

By Leslie Nemo
Nov 14, 2019 9:45 PMNov 19, 2019 3:38 PM
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An artist’s reconstruction of what Fukuipteryx prima may have looked like. (Credit: Masanori Yoshida)

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It was a typical Japanese summer — hot, humid and cloudy — when archaeologists pulled a well-preserved, fossilized bird from the ground in 2013. Their find, announced this week in Communications Biology, might change our idea of what adaptations were essential to the development of flight.

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