A bird in hand remains a mystery in stone

J.P. Cavigelli, a paleontologist at the Tate Geological Museum in Casper, opened a metal locker, pulled out a drawer containing dozens of specimens and retrieved a flat stone embedded with a small, rare-for-Wyoming fossilized bird.

“It’s the back end,” said Cavigelli, donning his trademark bandana and bushy, grey beard. “We got the pelvis, one really nice back leg and a not so nice back leg. We don’t know what it is yet.”

The fossil, discovered on private property in Laramie County, found its way to the Tate Museum a couple of years ago. The bird — definitely from the Miocene Epoch, according to Cavigelli — remained in the locker, its identity a mystery to be solved. Itching for answers, he attended a conference in New Zealand earlier this year where the topic was fossilized birds, determined to find an expert who might identify the specimen.

“We’re talking to a student in Chicago who is probably going to work on it,” Cavigelli said. “It basically entails looking at the dimensions of all the leg bones and the details of the joints on these things — that’s kind of what they look at when they do this stuff.”