{"id":139983,"date":"2021-09-28T00:36:49","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T00:36:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=139983"},"modified":"2021-09-28T00:36:49","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T00:36:49","slug":"25-million-year-old-fossil-is-unearthed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/world-news\/25-million-year-old-fossil-is-unearthed\/","title":{"rendered":"25 million year old fossil is unearthed"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Fossil believed to be one of the world&#8217;s oldest species of raptors from 25 million years ago is unearthed on a remote cattle station in Australia<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>A 25 million year old fossil is thought to be one of the world&#8217;s oldest raptors<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Pieces of the eagle were unearthed on a remote South Australian cattle station<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Flinders University palaeontologists discovered Archaehierax sylvestris<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>It was on the barren shore of a dry lake in a sandy desert that used to have trees\u00a0<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A 25-million-year-old eagle fossil, thought to be one of the world&#8217;s oldest species of raptors, has been unearthed on a remote South Australian cattle station.<\/p>\n<p>Flinders University palaeontologists discovered Archaehierax sylvestris, on the barren shore of a dry lake in a desolate sandy desert habitat during ongoing investigations into a lost ecosystem, when Australia&#8217;s interior was covered in trees and verdant forests.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;This species was slightly smaller and leaner than the wedge-tailed eagle, but it&#8217;s the largest eagle known from this time period in Australia,&#8217; PhD candidate Ellen Mather said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The foot span was nearly 15 cm long, which would have allowed it to grasp large prey.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2021\/09\/28\/00\/48473369-0-image-a-11_1632784504415.jpg\" height=\"423\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>Flinders University palaeontologist Warren Handley at a dig site near Lake Pinpa, South Australia<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The largest marsupial predators at the time were about the size of a small dog or large cat, so Archaehierax was certainly ruling the roost.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Associate Professor Trevor Worthy said eagles at the time were few in numbers so were infrequently preserved as fossils.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It&#8217;s rare to find even one bone from a fossil eagle,&#8217; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;To have most of the skeleton is pretty exciting, especially considering how old it is.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Ms Mather said the Australian environment of the time would have been challenging for flight given the forest coverage.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The fossil bones reveal that the wings of Archaehierax were short for its size, much like species of forest-dwelling eagles today,&#8217; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;Its legs, in contrast, were relatively long and would have given it considerable reach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The combination of these traits suggest Archaehierax was an agile but not particularly fast flier and was most likely an ambush hunter.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It was one of the top terrestrial predators of the late Oligocene, swooping upon birds and mammals.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>The raptor would have hunted koalas, possums and other animals in trees surrounding a vast shallow lake, on which waterfowl, cormorants and flamingos would have been abundant, the researchers said.<\/p>\n<p>They said the Archaehierax partial skeleton, made up of 63 bones, was one of the best-preserved from the SA site.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i.dailymail.co.uk\/1s\/2021\/09\/28\/00\/48473365-0-image-a-13_1632784805652.jpg\" height=\"448\" width=\"634\"><\/p>\n<p>The raptor would have hunted koalas, possums and other animals in trees surrounding a vast shallow lake, on which waterfowl, cormorants and flamingos would have been abundant, the researchers said<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The completeness of the skeleton allowed us to determine where it fits on the eagle family tree,&#8217; Ms Mather said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It shows a range of features unlike any seen among modern hawks and eagles.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;We found that Archaehierax didn&#8217;t belong to any of the living genera or families. It seems to have been its own unique branch of the eagle family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;It&#8217;s unlikely to be a direct ancestor to any species alive today.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Details of the find have just been published in the journal Historical Biology.<\/p>\n<p>Source: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailymail.co.uk\/news\/article-10035323\/Eagle-fossil-discovered-South-Australian-cattle-station.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Read Full Article<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fossil believed to be one of the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":139982,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23056],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>25 million year old fossil is unearthed - Pre Coin News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/world-news\/25-million-year-old-fossil-is-unearthed\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"25 million year old fossil is unearthed - 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