Source: CRI

06-19-2008 10:13

A Chinese archeologist published images of a Confucius bird, the earliest known bird, and the "ancient fruit of China," said to be the predecessor of all flowering plants, Xinhua news agency reports.

This photo, released on Tuesday, shows the restored image of a 130-million- year-old Confucius bird. [Photo: xinhuanet]

Zhao Chengwen, 65, a top professor at the China Criminal Police Institute, restored the images based on two fossils excavated in Chaoyang, Liaoning Province at the end of the last century.

The 130-million-year-old fossil of the Confucius bird was discovered in 1996. The flower's fossilized remains, found in 1998, dated back more than 145 million years.

Zhao and two of his graduate students spent two months restoring the remains, according to the report.