6 million years ago, an owl on the Tibetan Plateau had just eaten enough and was turned into fossils before it could digest

Review

There is no doubt that fossils have an irreplaceable role for paleontologists to study the prehistoric earth, and it is also the most intuitive archaeological method for modern humans.

But did you know that behind every fossil is a brilliant story, and paleontologists can often find the unknown past of those paleontologists in the process of examining fossils.

For example, 6 million years ago, an owl on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau had just eaten enough, but before it could digest, a disaster came and turned it into a fossil; Do you know what an owl was like 6 million years ago? What sudden disaster did it encounter?

Owls on the plateau

All birds in the order Owl are called owls, and they are widely distributed on all continents except Antarctica.

However, we do not see owls very often in our lives, which is mainly related to their habits; Most owls prefer to sleep on branches during the day and go out hunting at night to feed on nocturnal animals.

Owls like to feed on rats, because most of the rats are also infested at night and are very easy to catch. During the winter season of rats, owls also eat insects, birds or fish in the river.

Their digestive organs are very special, after successful hunting, often swallow the whole animal, the digestible part will become the energy of the owl's survival, the indigestible part such as feathers, bones, chitin and other residues will be integrated into small clumps, and then spit out through the esophagus.

Unlike other animals, paleontologists have had a difficult time tracing the owl because it has both the characteristics of a terrestrial creature and the properties of a sky creature.

So far, scientists have not found a direct ancestor of the owl in the bird fossils, which also shrouds its identity with a layer of mystery.

It is also believed that the ancestors of owls originated from theropod dinosaurs, after all, the ancestors of modern birds originated from this; Since owls have the attribute of flight, they will more or less carry the genes of theropod dinosaurs.

However, this claim has not been confirmed, since the difficulty of traceability means that their ancestors are extremely ancient, probably already appearing in the Cretaceous Period.

Despite the difficulties, paleontologists have not given up on tracing the origin of owls, and even the slightest clue may be a key clue. Not long ago, mainland paleontologists found a 6 million-year-old owl fossil in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau region, which is simply a shocking discovery.

First of all, in the whole of China, more than 6 million years of owl fossils have been found for the first time, and through this fossil, we can further study the living habits of owls in ancient times.

Secondly, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where fossils are found, is also a place worth pondering, although owls can live in plateaus and other places, but in terms of their habits, most of them will not go to the plateau to live, because there is too little food, which is not conducive to the survival of owls.

So what exactly is it that makes an owl fossil appear in the highland area? Fortunately, the fossil is very well preserved, allowing paleontologists to further explore the secrets of the owl. Throughout the excavation, paleontologists also saw an interesting scene, the owl may have just eaten enough, and before it could be digested, it was instantly turned into a fossil.

Rare complete fossils

Why are paleontologists so determined? It turned out that in the study of the owl fossil, they found that the fossil had traces of food residue on the abdomen. Apparently, the owl had just eaten a full meal and had not yet finished digesting it before it could die.

Paleontologists believe that the special situation of fossils has a lot to do with the changes in the environment at that time.

If owls die naturally, the food in their stomachs will oxidize and decompose over time, with absolutely no possibility of retention. If the owl had been hunted, the fossil would not have been so well preserved.

There is only one possibility: the owl that is eating has encountered a rare natural disaster, so that they are overwhelmed by the natural disaster before they can react, and they have completely lost their lives.

For natural disasters on the plateau, earthquakes, avalanches, or landslides are all possible; But preserving fossils intact under a catastrophe of this scale is a rare blessing for paleontologists.

What did the owl look like 6 million years ago? Paleontologists have really come up with a lot of key information in the process of research.

For example, in terms of skeletal structure, the owl eyes in this fossil are extremely narrow, very different from modern owls.

Narrow orbits mean that the eyeballs have insufficient visual range, but as a nocturnal animal, modern owls have very large orbits and eyeballs, which ensures that they can also see everything around them at night.

But this was clearly not the case with owls from 6 million years ago, suggesting that owls at the time may have been foraging animals during the day, as narrow eye sockets were not enough to support them to see objects at night.

Of course, it is not excluded that the owl fossils found on the plateau are the ancestors of the modern daytime northern eagle owl.

Although modern owls are mostly nocturnal creatures, there are still some owl keepers who travel during the day.

In any case, the discovery of owl fossils on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau this time is a significant event, we do not know why owls chose to live on the plateau 6 million years ago, is it a population habit or an individual case? Maybe this fossil can give us the answer.

epilogue

The study of the grand history of the change of the earth's species is inseparable from the excavation of fossils, compared with other inconspicuous myths and legends, fossils are the most scientific and intuitive proof.

Perhaps 6 million years ago, the owl would not have imagined that it would one day become the key evidence to witness the history of the development of paleontology; But as we said above, every fossil has its own history, its story, and they wait quietly under the soil, waiting for humans to reveal their story.