Abstract: The Lower Cretaceous Haman Formation of the Republic of Korea has yielded several localities with thousands of dinosaur, bird, and pterosaur tracks. One such tracksite is found at the Gyeongsangnam-do Institute of Science Education (GISE) in Jinju, Republis of Korea. More than 1000 bird tracks are exposed on a single bedding plane, and thousands more are found in smaller float blocks on exhibit around the museum or in storage. The morphologic and behavioral diversity is extremely high; there are more than seven different morphologies described herein, with behaviors ranging from feeding––including pecking, probing, predator-prey interactions, and scything traces––to landing and running. Arcuate traces and associated webbed-footed trackways are identical to scything feeding traces produced by the extant black-faced spoonbill (Palatea minor). Individual peck and probe marks have also been reported, and clustered probing has been observed. The behaviors at this site are strikingly modern in respect to morphology and diversity, indicating that ornithurine birds had a very modern set of behaviors and anatomy. The high morphologic diversity of track morphotypes indicates that Early Cretaceous ornithurine birds were actually very diverse, compared to previous assumptions based on the body fossil record, which is dominated by enantiornithines.

摘要： 韩国下白垩统哈曼组地层中已发现有数个化石点，含丰富的恐龙、鸟类以及翼龙足迹化石，其中一个足迹化石地点位于韩国晋州市的庆尚南道科学教育研究所。1000多个鸟类足迹发现于同一岩层，同时另有数千件零散的标本在博物馆展出或藏于库存中。这些足迹标本显示了生物体在形态学与行为学等方面很高的多样性。本文描述了至少7种不同的形态类型，指示了取食行为(包括啄食、探食、捕食者与被捕食者之间的行为关系), 以及镰刀状痕迹所反映出的着陆与奔跑的不同行为方式。保存的弓状痕迹及伴生的具蹼足迹与现生鸟类黑脸琵鹭(Palatea minor)在取食时留下的镰刀状痕迹相一致。单独的啄食及探食痕迹已有相关报道，集群探食痕迹亦有所发现。这个化石地点所保存的鸟类足迹在形态学和行为学上都非常进步，指示了今鸟类与现代鸟类相似的解剖学特征和行为模式。此前根据鸟类骨骼化石的记录，研究者认为反鸟类为早白垩世鸟类的主要类群，然而足迹形态的的高度多样性反映了早白垩世今鸟类已经具有很高的多样性。