Archeopteryx, one of the world’s first primitive birds, has a series of strange features never seen before, a new study reveals

Researchers have discovered a series of interesting, never-before-seen features in the skull of Archeopteryx, an iconic dinosaur considered the fossil of an important transitional period in the evolution of birds, a new study reports.

This characteristic, absent from flightless dinosaurs but common among living birds, may have allowed Archeopteryx to acquire, manipulate, and process food more efficiently, the researchers proposed. The study was published in the journal The Innovation on February 2nd.

Newly discovered features include a small bone that indicates Archeopteryx had a highly mobile tongue. The researchers also identified “strange” soft tissue signatures, small tooth-like protrusions on the roof of the mouth, that are interpreted as oral papillae, Jingmai O’Connor, associate curator of fossil reptiles at Chicago’s Field Museum and lead author of the study, told Live Science in an email. Finally, the researchers discovered an “unusual” opening near the tip of Archeopteryx’s jaw. This suggests a nerve-rich structure and may represent an early analog of what is known as the beak tip organ of modern birds.

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According to the study, confirmation of these characteristics in Archeopteryx marks the earliest occurrence of Archeopteryx in the fossil record and suggests that these characteristics evolved at or near the appearance of avian dinosaurs (known as birds), which is thought to have occurred during the Late Jurassic period (approximately 161.5 million to 143 million years ago).

Modern birds are the only lineage of dinosaurs that survived the mass extinction 66 million years ago. Archeopteryx, which lived in what is now Germany about 150 million years ago, is one of the oldest known dinosaurs, if not the oldest, and while it can be considered a bird in the broad sense, it probably wasn’t the first bird to evolve, O’Connor said.

Furthermore, research suggests that Archeopteryx is unlikely to be a direct ancestor of modern birds. O’Connor said Archeopteryx is the earliest known dinosaur with sufficient evidence of active feathered flight, but this was probably limited to short-term powered explosions.

The newly revealed features were revealed during the preparation and testing of the Field Museum’s Archeopteryx specimen, which was first scientifically described in 2025.

Oral papillae help birds grasp prey and guide food down the throat. This is the first time such a feature has been recorded in the fossil record, the study noted. A flexible tongue, on the other hand, likely helped Archeopteryx reach and manipulate food. O’Connor said birds’ beak tip organs provide “additional sensory information” that helps them perform a variety of oral tasks, such as walking around in search of food.

The latest discoveries about Archeopteryx show that changes in dinosaur feeding abilities occurred around the origin of birds, and raise the “interesting possibility” that the evolution of the new trait was driven by increased energy demands with the advent of powered flight with feathers, the authors suggest.

Christian Voss, a paleontologist at Berlin’s Natural History Museum who was not involved in the study, told Live Science in an email that the paper has “interesting findings” that should be further studied in specimens of other Archeopteryx, early birds, and bird-like dinosaurs. But he said he was unconvinced by the authors’ proposal for a new analogue of the snout and beak tip, and cautioned against suggestions that the feature evolved as an adaptation to Archeopteryx’s flight behavior.

“Active flight requires energy, yes. But how many calories an animal can ultimately expend for flight depends largely on the food source itself and its digestive system, about which we have no information at all,” Foss said. These tricks “may prevent captured dragonflies from falling out of their mouths,” he added, but “it doesn’t guarantee how well the bait will be processed.”