How did a prehistoric bird use its teeth?

When the first fossil of Longipteryx chaoyangensis was found in 2020, paleontologists thought its toothed beak suggested it ate fish. Scientists initially compared the ancient bird to the contemporary kingfisher because of its similarly-shaped skull and beak, and diet of small fish, but that resemblance turned out to be a red herring.

A more recent look inside a specimen’s stomach showed the bird — which lived 120 million years ago in what’s now northeastern China — fed on fruit-like plants.

Longipteryx had disproportionately large teeth toward the front of the beak, and the thickness of those teeth’s enamel resembles that of a hyper-carnivore, akin to a meat-eating dinosaur like Allosaurus. Now, scientists suppose that those features weren’t meant for eating, and Longipteryx was using its head as a weapon, just like modern hummingbirds wield their long, narrow beaks as air-born swords to fight off competition for food.

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