A primitive bird with razor-sharp dinosaur teeth from Limburg

The chalk quarries in the Maastricht area have yielded yet another new and interesting fossil. The remains of a primitive bird, some 66 million years old, will be on display at the Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht starting Tuesday, September 3.

Birds have descended from meat-eating dinosaurs. All modern birds have bills without teeth, but primitive fossil birds demonstrate their relationship with dinosaurs well: the primitive bird from Limburg had a pointed bill with razor-sharp dinosaur teeth. This is the first time that fossil remains of birds have been recognised from Cretaceous rocks in Limburg.

The lightweight, hollow bones make that the fossil is extremely fragile. This also explains why it is not complete, and this in turn has greatly complicated the study of the fossil. The remains cannot be ascribed to a modern bird, but rather belong to a group of primitive birds that is well known from the United States. Our animal was closely related to the American primitive genus Ichthyornis, a diving, fish-eating sea bird. The new find represents the first definitive record of this group from Europe. In addition, the stratigraphic age of the fossil is of note: it is the last 'old-fashioned' bird currently on record; dated at c. 65.8 million years this bird flew and dived close to the end of the age of dinosaurs.

This primitive bird was collected from the CBR-Romontbos quarry, near Maastricht, just across the Netherlands-Belgium border. It was discovered by Ruud Dortangs, the non-professional palaeontologist who previously unearthed our new mosasaur, Bèr. In studying the bird, the Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht has closely co-operated with fossil bird experts from New York and Los Angeles. A description of the new find has just appeared in the September issue of the international scientific journal, 'Naturwissenschaften'.