Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Ancient Egyptians revered a heron-like god, Bennu, as the creator of the uni-
verse, as well as the sun god Ra, who had a human body but the head of a hawk.
Incans viewed Andean condors (
Vultur gryphus
) as representing a higher realm
of being in a three-level universe. Both Hinduism and Buddhism mention Garuda
(“eagle” in Sanskrit), a bird-like god that was particularly skilled at dispatching
snakes. In Judaism, King Solomon understood bird languages and used this know-
ledge to help his people. The Quran mentions the Ababil, flocks of birds that pro-
tected Mecca against an invading army. Christianity features doves in many of its
teachings, including its symbolism as the Holy Spirit.
In the secular world, millions of people worship birds every day by looking
for, identifying, and marveling at them. Birdwatching is among the most popular of
all outdoor activities in the U.S., enjoyed by about 60 million people. In terms of
an unconscious homage to birds, nearly every rock concert in the southeastern U.S.
since 1973 has witnessed someone at some point yelling the words “Free Bird!”
In short, these dinosaurs of the everyday have become powerful and omnipresent
symbols for much of humanity, interwoven with the biological and cultural devel-
opment of our species.
As nearly every precocious five- to ten-year-old can tell us nowadays, birds
first evolved from non-avian theropods in the Jurassic Period. Also, for nearly as
long as we have formally studied dinosaurs, we have known about fossil birds near
the time of that evolutionary transition. First discovered in 1861,
Archaeopteryx
lithographica
, from Late Jurassic (150
mya
) rocks of Germany, was long regarded
astheoldestknownbird.However,somepaleontologistsnowregard
Archaeopteryx
as more of a non-avian dinosaur, and two Chinese fossils,
Anchiornis huxleyi
and
Aurornis xui
from earlier in the Jurassic (circa 160
mya
), may be closer to a hypo-
thesized “first bird.”
As far as bird trace fossils are concerned, the oldest suspected bird tracks
come from Late Jurassic-Early Cretaceous rocks in various places from about 130
to 140 million years ago. Based on these and geologically younger tracks from
