Is It A Duck,

or is it a chicken?

Daniel Field, a paleontologist at the University of Cambridge, who led the work said, “You can play this game all day: ‘Oh, it’s a duck! No, it’s a chicken!’” referring to the find of the oldest modern bird skull ever, since this bird predates the split between ducks, chickens, and turkeys, it has traits of all the three birds mentioned. It is, in other words, a 3-in-1 bird, and for these characteristics, let us aptly call this bird the turducken, “This is an incredibly informative specimen,” says Amy Balanoff, a paleontologist at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, who wasn’t involved in the work. Whereas the earliest birds, like the 150-million-year old Archaeopteryx, look very different from today’s, the new fossil has clear characteristics of modern land and waterfowl, perhaps offering a glimpse of their common ancestor, more details about this over at Science Magazine, image credit: Phillip Krzeminski, duck, chicken, turkey, I wonder what it would have tasted like?