"These were some of the earliest birds on the planet: about the size of crows, with black feathers, and probably partial to eating insects. They weren't great fliers, spending most of their time on the ground and occasionally flapping into the air - perhaps to escape sneaking predators. They also didn't look like modern birds. They had teeth in their jaws and claws at the ends of their wings - features seen on no adult birds today."
"Fossils of Archaeopteryx are some of the most famous in history, but this creature is also an enigma. For more than a century, Archaeopteryx has been the only known bird genus from the Jurassic: the period when birds first evolved. Many other dinosaur-era birds have been discovered over the past few decades, but they are all from the subsequent period, the Cretaceous: a time when many diverse types of bird lived around the world. The group's origins remained lost in time."
"Now, researchers finally have a second genus of Jurassic birds. Baminornis, discovered in China and described in February 2025, instantly expanded scientists' knowledge of the earliest birds. Baminornis is unlike Archaeopteryx, hinting at a complex evolutionary story. In parallel, the description of a remarkably well-preserved Archaeopteryx specimen, which had remained hidden for decades, has shed unprecedented light on the first birds."
About 150 million years ago Europe was tropical and largely submerged under a shallow inland sea, with islands where early birds lived. Some early birds, exemplified by Archaeopteryx, were crow-sized, black-feathered, largely ground-dwelling, and retained dinosaurian features such as teeth and wing claws. Archaeopteryx was long the only known Jurassic bird genus, leaving the group's origins unclear. The discovery of Baminornis in China provides a second Jurassic bird genus and differs notably from Archaeopteryx, suggesting more complex early avian diversity. A newly described, well-preserved Archaeopteryx specimen offers unprecedented anatomical detail and informs questions about the origins of powered flight.
Read at Nature
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