Confuciusornis, the first beaked bird
An early bird trades teeth for a horny beak, and dies in such numbers that thousands are known.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 5 million years
- Known to
- ± 1 million years
- Era
- Cretaceous, Mesozoic
Confuciusornis is the earliest known bird with a true toothless beak, and it survives in the Jehol lake beds in extraordinary abundance — thousands of specimens, some in mass-mortality layers likely killed by volcanic gas. Many carry a pair of long ribbon-like tail feathers that appear in only some individuals, one of the oldest plausible cases of sexual display in the fossil record. Its shoulder joint suggests it was a competent but not modern flier, occupying a real stage between Archaeopteryx and the birds that follow.