Photographs From a Day Out West

Taking Flight: Rare Bird Discovery

Ichthyornis (sp?)
Rare bird skeleton
Discovered: August 17 2014
Smoky Hill Chalk (L. Cretaceous)
Gove county KS, USA
Currently under preparation in the Sternberg Museum of Natural History

Radius, ulna, sternum, lower jaws:

***Images redacted, pending publication of research paper***

 Skull material? Coracoid, much still to be identified:

Information on Ichthyornis

- It was the first discovered prehistoric bird preserved with teeth

- Charles Darwin told Marsh in an 1880 letter that Ichthyornis offered "the best support for the theory of evolution" since he had first published On the Origin of Species in 1859
- It is estimated that there are fewer than a dozen specimens with this level of completeness