Fossil Novembirb: Day 14 - Lost in the Woods
As the global climate was cooling during the Oligocene epoch, tropical rainforests started to shift towards their current distribution in the tropics, and open landscapes such as scrubland was spreading. But that doesn't mean forests were disappearing. In places like Central and Eastern Europe, forests shifted from tropical to temperate. And in these shifting landscapes, birds continued to adapt and diversify.
Turnipax: One of the earliest known members of a relatively obscure bird groups called buttonquails. Despite their quail-like appearance and lifestyle, buttonquails are shorebirds related to gulls and sandpipers.
Palaeotodus: This small insectivore is one of the first known members of the todies, a bird group nowadays restricted to the West Indies.
Primotrogon: An early member of the trogons which had a very different shape compared to its modern relatives, including long wings, a short tail, and relatively small eyes.
Eurotrochilus: The first known true hummingbird, a group now endemic to the Americas, but first appeared in Europe.
Aviraptor: A thrush-sized true hawk with long thin legs and sharp talons, this was a prime predator of small forest birds in the Oligocene.
Wieslochia: One of the earliest known passeriformes, a group that likely evolved in Australia,parts of it's skeleton resemble certain South American passeriforms, like cotingas.
Rupelramphastoides: As the earliest known ramphastid, it was closely related to the barbets as well as toucans, but it bore a closer resemblance to the former.
Oligocolius: A bizarre relative of modern mousebirds that had an appetite for seeds, as the holotype was preserved with seeds in its crop and gullet. It also had a slightly parrot-like beak.
Laurillardia: A distant relative of hoopoes and hornbills, this long winged and long tailed bird used its sharp beak to catch insects.
Rupelornis: A close relative of albatrosses, these seabirds had delicate beaks and long legs. They probably had a similar lifestyle to storm petrels, which carefully pick food from the surface of the water.
