The complete skull is one of the most significant finds of its kind, say researchers.
Navaornis is named after William Nava who discovered the fossil in 2016 at a site near Presidente Prudente, Brazil
Dr Guillermo Navalón, the co-lead author of the study, said he was "awestruck" by the "one-of-a-kind" fossil which "lets us fully appreciate the anatomy of this early bird".Navaornis lived approximately 80 million years ago in what is now Brazil, before the mass extinction event that killed all non-avian dinosaurs
The fossil filled a 70-million-year gap in the understanding of how the brains of birds evolved: between the 150-million-year-oldNavaornis had a larger cerebrum than Archaeopteryx, suggesting it had more advanced cognitive capabilities than the earliest bird-like dinosaurs. "This fossil is truly so one-of-a-kind that I was awestruck from the moment I first saw it to the moment I finished assembling all the skull bones and the brain, which lets us fully appreciate the anatomy of this early bird."While the discovery is a significant breakthrough, the researchers say it is only the first step in understanding the evolution of bird intelligence
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