A fossil of a bird discovered near the border between Belgium and the Netherlands could be the earliest known ancestor of every chicken on the planet.
- It has been dubbed the ‘wonderchicken’ by the international team of scientists that analyzed the fossil.
- The fossil bird has been named Asteriornis maastrichtensis, after Asteria, a Greek goddess of falling stars who turns into a quail. It was found in a quarry on the Netherlands-Belgium border.
- Lived 66.7 million years ago, fossil gives a glimpse into the dawn of modern birds.
- The research paper was published in Journal Nature.
- It was a long-legged shorebird that could probably fly and likely combed the beaches of late Cretaceous Europe,
