Well it will take more than a hat in hand to find the actual written "quote" of this. I did make a mistake however, and included all the information in the same paragraph, which was an error. The actual account from my memory was from a European Explorer who mentioned that in one of his journals, the excerpt was in mention of a native telling him that Macaw's were not that good of a food source, and that other selections of other animals were better "tasting."
And if you'd check again in the article I linked above you'll find two very important passages:
“This find suggests that by the end of the Cretaceous period, around 65 to 70 million years ago,
modern birds were an important group, at least in North America,” said author Stidham.
Modern birds will be explained later in the report.
"This specimen, only half an inch long, was probably from a bird about the size of a macaw, and most closely resembles the lories of Australia and some of the
South American macaws. It thus is the oldest known parrot and the oldest reported modern land bird.
This thesis was conducted with support from the University of California-Berkeley Genome Project which (debatably) is the largest repository of DNA not only for animals in general but avian species as well. Berkeleyan Press 1992
Initial report from Cal-Berkeley:
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/berkeleyan ... ossil.html When Dr. Stidman submitted his thesis upon his Doctorial candidacy. This thesis has been thoroughly vetted (since 1998) and has appeared in several leading scientific journals. At this point I don't think we need to challenge any of it's authenticity (the origin of modern land-terrestrial birds,) but rather how this information can help us understand the initial territories of Macaws (just South American to now areas of the USA) and how our planet has evolved in weather conditions/heating-cooling as it relates to global warming.
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