ArticleNature communications2021
Cretaceous bird with dinosaur skull sheds light on avian cranial evolution.
Article in Nature communications, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 25 citations in OpenAlex.
- Article
- Article
- Avian cranial kinesis is the result of increased encephalization during the origin of birds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Whence the birds: 200 years of dinosaurs, avian antecedents.Biology letters · 2025Review
- Article
- Avialan-like brain morphology in Sinovenator (Troodontidae, Theropoda).Communications biology · 2024Article
- Turtle skull development unveils a molecular basis for amniote cranial diversity.Science advances · 2023Article
- Article
- Article
- Fossil basicranium clarifies the origin of the avian central nervous system and inner ear.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Novel evolution of a hyper-elongated tongue in a Cretaceous enantiornithine from China and the evolution of the hyolingual apparatus and feeding in birds.Journal of anatomy · 2022Article
- Skull morphology and histology indicate the presence of an unexpected buccal soft tissue structure in dinosaurs.Journal of anatomyArticle
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The transformation of the bird skull from an ancestral akinetic, heavy, and toothed dinosaurian morphology to a highly derived, lightweight, edentulous, and kinetic skull is an innovation as significant as powered flight and feathers. Our understanding of evolutionary assembly of the modern form and function of avian cranium has been impeded by the rarity of early bird fossils with well-preserved skulls. Here, we describe a new enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of China that preserves a nearly complete skull including the palatal elements, exposing the components of cranial kinesis. Our three-dimensional reconstruction of the entire enantiornithine skull demonstrates that this bird has an akinetic skull indicated by the unexpected retention of the plesiomorphic dinosaurian palate and diapsid temporal configurations, capped with a derived avialan rostrum and cranial roof, highlighting the highly modular and mosaic evolution of the avialan skull.
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