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A parrot fossil from 16 million years ago has been discovered by scientists in a surprising.
Researchers found the artifact in Siberia shedding new light on the tropical birds.
It is the first time a parrot fossil has been found in that region and suggests that parrots were once widespread in Eurasia.
The single leg bone recovered from an island on Baikal Lake belonged to a small bird from the late Early Miocene epoch between 16 and 18 million years ago.
No other parrot fossil has been discovered so far north.
The find supports the theory that ancestors of modern parrots migrated from Asia to North America via the Berengia land bridge which once joined the two continents.
Today, parrots, or psittacines, make up almost 400 species that inhabit tropical and sub-tropical regions around the world.
Dr Nikita Zelenev, from the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow, : "The presence of parrots as far north as Siberia supports their broad geographical distribution in Asia during Miocene and may have implications for the historical biogeography of Psittacoidea."
He added: "A dispersal of parrots via Beringia during the late Early Miocene is not completely unexpected.
"Today hummingbirds, which are also mostly tropical in their distribution, reach as far north as Alaska and during the warmest phase of the Miocene a more northern distribution of parrots in Asia was likely possible."
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