A creature described as resembling a “buck-toothed toucan” that lived some 68 million years ago in (what is now) Madagascar has recently been discovered thanks to its fossilized remains. It was small, just 3.5 inches (9 cm) long. But it is outsized in its importance.
The tall, scythe-like beak, while resembling the toucan, is something never before seen in the fossil record for the Mesozoic. Birds in the Mesozoic did not have specialized beaks. Or at least, it was thought they did not, until Falcatakely forsterae was found.
