Ichthyornis dispar, The Bird With Teeth, Fort Wallace Museum ~ Wallace, Kansas
Collected by J. Bussen & G. Winkler
Prepared by David Burnham (KU)
Cast by Triebold Paleontology Inc.
Mounted by Anthony Maltese (TPI)
This Sleleton is the best & most complete of its kind. While alive, this bird was no larger than an average pigeon. (This species lived approx. 80 million years ago.)
Found in Lane County, Ks
By Greg Winkler
The first remains of a toothed bid from the Smoky Hill Chalk were collected from Rooks County in the summer of 1872 by Professor Benjamin F. Mudge, then a professor at the Kansas State Agricultural Collage (KSAC, now Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS0. Later S. W. Williston, once a student of Mudge's would note "that Professor Mudge found the remarkable specimen of Ichthyormis, (near) the North Fork of the Solomon, which furnished to the world the discovery of the then startling fact of birds with genuine teeth."
Williston (1898) also provided the following story of what had occurred: "An incident related to me by Professor Mudge in connection with this specimen is of interest. He had been sending his vertebrate fossils previously to Professor Cope for determination. Learning through Professor Dana that Professor Marsh, who as a boy had been an acquaintance of Professor Mudge, was interested in these fossils, he changed the address upon the box containing the bird specimen after he had made it ready to send to Professor Cope, & sent it instead to Professor Marsh. Had Professor Cope received the box, he would have been the first to make known to the world the discovery of "Birds with Teeth."
Notice of a New & Remarable Fossil Bird;
by O. C. Marsh
One of the most interesting of recent discoveries in Paleontology is the skeleton of a fossil bird, found during the past summer, in the upper Cretaceous shale of Kansas, by Prof. B. F. Mudge, who has kindly sent the specimen to me for examination. The remains indicate an aquatic bird, about as large as a pigeon, & differing widely from all known birds in having biconcave vertebrae. The cervical, dorsal, & caudal vertebrae preserved all show this character, the ends of the centra resembling those in Plesiosaurus. The rest of the skeleton presents no marked deviation from the ordinary avian type. The wings were large in proportion to the posterior extremities. The humerus is 58.6mm. in length, & has the radial crest strongly developed. The femur is small, & has the proximal end compressed transversely. The tibia is slender, & 44.5 long. Its distal end is incurved, as in swimming birds, has no supratendinal ridge. This species may be called Ichthyormis dispar. A complete description will appear in an early number of this journal.
Yale College, Sept. 26th, 1872.
Marsh, O. C. 1872. Notice of a new & remarkable fossil bird. American Journal of Science 4(22):344
Ichthyornis dispar, The Bird With Teeth, Fort Wallace Museum ~ Wallace, Kansas
Collected by J. Bussen & G. Winkler
Prepared by David Burnham (KU)
Cast by Triebold Paleontology Inc.
Mounted by Anthony Maltese (TPI)
This Sleleton is the best & most complete of its kind. While alive, this bird was no larger than an average pigeon. (This species lived approx. 80 million years ago.)
Found in Lane County, Ks
By Greg Winkler
The first remains of a toothed bid from the Smoky Hill Chalk were collected from Rooks County in the summer of 1872 by Professor Benjamin F. Mudge, then a professor at the Kansas State Agricultural Collage (KSAC, now Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS0. Later S. W. Williston, once a student of Mudge's would note "that Professor Mudge found the remarkable specimen of Ichthyormis, (near) the North Fork of the Solomon, which furnished to the world the discovery of the then startling fact of birds with genuine teeth."
Williston (1898) also provided the following story of what had occurred: "An incident related to me by Professor Mudge in connection with this specimen is of interest. He had been sending his vertebrate fossils previously to Professor Cope for determination. Learning through Professor Dana that Professor Marsh, who as a boy had been an acquaintance of Professor Mudge, was interested in these fossils, he changed the address upon the box containing the bird specimen after he had made it ready to send to Professor Cope, & sent it instead to Professor Marsh. Had Professor Cope received the box, he would have been the first to make known to the world the discovery of "Birds with Teeth."
Notice of a New & Remarable Fossil Bird;
by O. C. Marsh
One of the most interesting of recent discoveries in Paleontology is the skeleton of a fossil bird, found during the past summer, in the upper Cretaceous shale of Kansas, by Prof. B. F. Mudge, who has kindly sent the specimen to me for examination. The remains indicate an aquatic bird, about as large as a pigeon, & differing widely from all known birds in having biconcave vertebrae. The cervical, dorsal, & caudal vertebrae preserved all show this character, the ends of the centra resembling those in Plesiosaurus. The rest of the skeleton presents no marked deviation from the ordinary avian type. The wings were large in proportion to the posterior extremities. The humerus is 58.6mm. in length, & has the radial crest strongly developed. The femur is small, & has the proximal end compressed transversely. The tibia is slender, & 44.5 long. Its distal end is incurved, as in swimming birds, has no supratendinal ridge. This species may be called Ichthyormis dispar. A complete description will appear in an early number of this journal.
Yale College, Sept. 26th, 1872.
Marsh, O. C. 1872. Notice of a new & remarkable fossil bird. American Journal of Science 4(22):344