The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Gatoclass (talk) 17:39, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

European herring gull

• ... that genetic evidence suggests the gull, tern and skimmer family Laridae (European herring gull pictured) originated in the Cretaceous period in the age of dinosaurs? Source: source - see figure 2.
  • ALT1:... that the family Laridae (European herring gull pictured) alone among shorebirds developed ultraviolet vision? Source: [1]

• Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Preston By-pass

Converted from a redirect by Aa77zz (talk), Casliber (talk), and Pvmoutside (talk). Nominated by Casliber (talk) at 22:43, 22 April 2017 (UTC).

The Cretaceous date reported by Baker et al. 2007 is almost certainly nonsense. The results of the very much larger and more recent study by Prum et al (2016) published in Nature doi:10.1038/nature15697, (see Fig 1) indicate a much more recent origin. All (or almost all) birds are post Cretaceous. The Buttonquails (Turnix) branch off just before the Oligocene and the Glareola branch during the Oligocene. The Laridae genera Chroicocephalus and Sterna branch in the mid Miocene - around 14 Mya. Aa77zz (talk) 06:27, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

• Casliber, this seems to be a significant issue with the hook. Can you please address it, perhaps by proposing a different hook, and making any necessary modifications to the article? Many thanks. BlueMoonset (talk) 17:38, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• Fossils are rare so I was happy to presume the evidence was lacking but I forgot about that paper. Ok, back to the drawing board...Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 19:54, 28 April 2017 (UTC)
• ALT1 suggested above. @Aa77zz:? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:51, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

• Full review needed now that ALT1 hook has been proposed. BlueMoonset (talk) 04:35, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

• This is a new article replacing a redirect and is new enough and long enough. The image is appropriately licensed, the ALT1 hook is acceptable and is cited to a reliable source, the article is neutral and I detected no copyright issues. Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:35, 14 May 2017 (UTC)