A peculiar fossil has helped scientists discover an unusual bird that lived among the dinosaurs 120 million years ago, and the find is changing the way researchers think about avian evolution. The previously unknown species has been named Imparavis attenboroughi, which means “Attenborough’s strange bird” in Latin in honor of British naturalist Sir David Attenborough. All birds descended from dinosaurs, and some of the earliest ones resembled them. But Imparavis, which belonged to a diverse bird group called enantiornithines, likely looked more like the birds we’re familiar with today, according to a new study published Tuesday in the journal Cretaceous Research. Enantiornithines are known as “opposite birds” because they had a shoulder joint feature that greatly differs from the ones modern birds have. “Enantiornithines are very weird. Most of them had teeth and still had clawed digits,” said lead study author Alex Clark, a doctoral student at the University of…
