Scientists have unearthed in southeastern China the fossil of a quail-sized bird that lived about 150 million years ago during the Jurassic Period and possessed surprisingly modern traits, a discovery that rewrites the history of avian evolution.

The short-tailed find with the forelimb of a raptor is an extremely rare example of the transition from dinosaurs to birds Chinese palaeontologists have found what could be the world's oldest bird fossil,

Scientists have discovered the oldest bird fossil shedding light on birds' origin in China, and reshaping the timeline of bird evolution.

CCTV Chinese scientists have discovered one of the world's oldest bird fossils of Baminornis zhenghensis in East China's Fujian Province, which is also the only confirmed Jurassic avian to date, and found that the body structure of modern birds had already emerged in the Late Jurassic,

Researchers in China found Baminornis zhenghensis, which lived at roughly the same time as the famous Archaeopteryx but looked much more like modern birds due to its short tail

Two fossils suggest that birds were thriving and diversifying in China as the Jurassic Period closed, new research reveals. Given the contentiousness of avian origins, however, the debate may have a fair way to run.

This discovery extends the timeline for the evolution of key bird features by millions of years. “Previously, the oldest record of short-tailed birds is from the Early Cretaceou