Life history of a basal bird: morphometrics of the Early Cretaceous Confuciusornis

Confuciusornis sanctus stands out among the remarkable diversity of Mesozoic birds recently unearthed from China. Not only is this primitive beaked pygostylian (birds with abbreviated caudal vertebrae fused into a pygostyle) much more abundant than other avian taxa of this age but differences in plumage between specimens-some having a pair of long stiff tail feathers-have been interpreted as evidence for the earliest example of sexual dimorphism in birds. We report the results of a multivariate morphometric study involving measurements of more than 100 skeletons of C. sanctus. Our analyses do not show any correlation between size distribution and the presence or absence of blade-like rectrices (tail feathers), thus implying, that if these feathers are sexual characters, they are not correlated with sexual size dimorphism. Our results also provide insights into the taxonomy and life history of confuciusornithids, suggesting that these birds may have retained ancestral dinosaurian growth patterns characterized by a midlife exponential growth stage.