Publication Date:
2004-05-08
Description:
I report on tiny skeletons of stem-group hummingbirds from the early Oligocene of Germany that are of essentially modern appearance and exhibit morphological specializations toward nectarivory and hovering flight. These are the oldest fossils of modern-type hummingbirds, which had not previously been reported from the Old World. The findings demonstrate that early hummingbird evolution was not restricted to the New World. They further suggest that bird-flower coevolution dates back to the early Oligocene and open another view on the origin of ornithophily in Old World plants.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Notes: 〈/span〉Mayr, Gerald -- New York, N.Y. -- Science. 2004 May 7;304(5672):861-4.〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Author address: 〈/span〉Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, Division of Ornithology, Senckenberganlage 25, D-60325 Frankfurt a.M., Germany. Gerald.Mayr@senckenberg.de〈br /〉〈span class="detail_caption"〉Record origin:〈/span〉 〈a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15131303" target="_blank"〉PubMed〈/a〉
Keywords:
Americas
;
Animals
;
*Biological Evolution
;
*Birds/anatomy & histology/classification
;
Bone and Bones/anatomy & histology
;
Europe
;
Flight, Animal
;
Flowers
;
*Fossils
;
Germany
Print ISSN:
0036-8075
Electronic ISSN:
1095-9203
Topics:
Biology
,
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Computer Science
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General
,
Physics
