Amateur collectors in Japan discover country's first and oldest fossil diving bird

(Perot Museum of Nature and Science) Two brothers from a small town in Hokkaido, Japan, made the discovery of their lives -- the first and oldest fossil bird ever identified in their country. Identified as a new species, it has been named Chupkaornis keraorum. The scientific paper describing the find -- entitled 'The oldest Asian Hesperornithiform from the Upper Cretaceous of Japan, and the phylogenetic reassessment of Hesperornithiformes' -- has been posted on the Journal of Systematic Palaeontology website.

from EurekAlert! - Social and Behavioral Science http://ift.tt/2fr6IjR