Fossil Novembirb: Day 5 - It's Getting Hot in Here
It's the late Paleocene, and the climate is red hot. And it'll get hotter still. It's the start of an event called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. At this moment, the Earth's climate warms very rapidly, and it'll gets really warm. How warm? Warm enough for rainforests in Europe, and for towering cypress swamps to grow in the Arctic. And as for these birds living in Paleocene Wyoming, their world is a steaming hot tropical wetland.
Primoptynx: One of the earliest known owls, and was quite large. Unlike modern owls it had talons more like a hawk, and it hunted during the day.
Sandcoleus: An early relative of mousebirds, and a climbing opportunistic omnivorous forest dweller.
Anachronornis: A peculiar kind of waterfowl, related to ducks and bearing a striking resemblance to the screamers of South America.
Paragrus: Despite its name, this is bird is not related to cranes. Instead it belongs to a group of flightless birds called Geranoidids, which are related to ostritches.
Lithornis promiscuus: An early relative of Palaeognath birds like ostritches and emus. Unlike most modern paleognaths, it could fly for long distances and even soar.
Lithornis plebius: Another Lithornithid, and like all lithornithids, had a long sensitive beak for probing insects from soil and leaf litter.
