A 47-million-year-old fossil bird with pollen grains in its belly is the first direct evidence of nectar-feeding in birds.

Gerald Mayr and Volker Wilde at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt, Germany, analysed the fossil of a small bird, Pumiliornis tessellatus (pictured), which is similar to cuckoos or parrots. Its thin, long beak resembles those of other nectar-slurping birds, such as hummingbirds. Electron microscopy revealed pollen grains in the bird's stomach (boxed).

Credit: Gerald Mayr/Senckenberg Res. Inst.

P. tessellatus is not closely related to present-day nectar-feeding birds, suggesting that interactions between birds and flowers predate those species, the authors say.

Biol. Lett. http://doi.org/szj (2014)