Dinosaur-like birds
Rahonavis is a primitive bird from 80 million-year-old rocks of Madagascar. Despite being more bird-like than Archaeopteryx, raven-sized Rahonavis retains some very distinctive theropod features including the distinctive slashing claw used to murderous effect by Velociraptor in the film Jurassic Park. Velociraptor is thought to be about as close as a dinosaur gets to being a bird without actually being one.
A host of small primitive birds have been found elsewhere around the world. From Mongolia comes a large flightless bird, Mononykus, with wings replaced by a lethal-looking pair of single-digit hands that stuck out in front like a pair of combat chop sticks. Another flightless bird from Patagonia confirms that not all early birds thought the sky was a great place to be. Other primitive birds lived along side Rahonavis in Madagascar. A sparrow-sized bird from Spain had a more modern shoulder joint than Archaeopteryx and a perching foot but it still had teeth. The first known beak adorned a Chinese bird 130 million years ago, along with the oldest pygostyle (the "parsons-nose" in birds that is all that remains of the reptilian tail). 110 million-year-old feathers and bird bones have even been recovered from Victoria and Queensland. It would appear that once true birds had evolved they didn't waste much time in spreading around the world!
