While excavating the ancient inland‑sea deposits near Richmond, about 500 km inland from Townsville, amateur fossil hunter Kevin Petersen uncovered a long, thin bone. He photographed the find and sent the image to Matt White, a palaeontologist at the University of New England, who travelled to the site to examine it.

The bone turned out to be part of a bird’s leg – a tarsometatarsus and a matching tibiotarsus – allowing researchers to name a new species, Tenuicruris piscanexum, which lived in the Cretaceous, more than 100 million years ago and was about the size of a bush turkey.

Matt White explained that finding bird bones in the Richmond area is "extremely rare" because most fossils there are marine reptiles. He noted that the delicate shape of the bones immediately reminded him of similar Cretaceous specimens from China.

Professor Mike Archer of the University of New South Wales said bird bones are "paper thin" and often do not survive the fossilisation process, which is why such finds are scarce. He added that the inland‑sea setting suggests the bird may have fed on fish far from shore, hinting at early avian ecological habits.

The team hopes that this discovery will fill gaps in Australia’s Cretaceous bird record and improve our understanding of how early birds lived, moved and fed in ancient ecosystems.