Hummingbirds are pretty old as bird species go.
In my May 8th issue of Science News (just getting around to reading it), there's an article about a pair of hummingbird fossils that date to 34 million years ago.
The previous hummingbird fossil -- from Central America -- is just 1 million years old.
This fossil was found in Germany, and is remarkable in that there are no hummingbirds in Europe, Asia, or Africa today. Lucky us!
Our loons are still the oldest bird species appearing today on Earth, with the first appearing 60 million years ago.
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