Name:
Gansus (after a Chinese province); pronounced GAN-suss
Habitat:
Rivers and lakes of Asia
Historical Period:
Early Cretaceous (110 million years ago)
Size and Weight:
About one foot long and a few ounces
Diet:
Small fish
Distinguishing Characteristics:
Small size; amphibious lifestyle
About Gansus:
"Bird" is too generic a word to be useful to most experts, who prefer to deal with "ornithurans," a family that includes not only all modern birds but also bird-like lineages that went extinct millions of years ago (a good example being the late Cretaceous Hesperornis). The importance of the early Cretaceous Gansus is that this prehistoric bird may (or may not) have been the earliest known ornithuran, a pigeon-sized, semi-aquatic bundle of feathers that behaved much like a modern duck or loon, diving beneath the water in pursuit of small fish. The implication, of course, is that modern birds had their ultimate origin in amphibious environments, a conclusion that's not widely accepted by all paleontologists.
