Baby enantiornithine able to run at birth

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A new study on a fossil of a baby enantiornithine from the Late Cretaceous of Las Hoyas in Spain using laser-stimulated fluorescence revealed downy feathers on the chick's neck and wings as well as a potential larger feather with a central vane on the left wing. Up until now, this specimen had been believed to have completely lacked feathers, suggesting an altricial lifestyle. However, the new feathers, in addition to other evidence that shows that enantiornithines buried their eggs instead of incubating them, suggest that enantiornithines actually led a superprecocial lifestyle, with the chicks being able to run and possibly fly from birth. Here is a reconstruction of the baby enantiornithine and images of the fossil (the middle of the second image shows the fossil with the newly revealed feathers), as well as a link to the paper describing the new feathers.




Paper (open access!): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-019-41423-7

[Halichoeres]

Cool find, thanks for posting!