Creature described as resembling a "buck-toothed toucan" that lived some 68 million years ago.

At less than nine centimetres (3.5 inches) long, the delicate skull of the bird scientists have dubbed Falcatakely forsterae might be easily overlooked.

In fact, it almost was, sitting in a backlog of excavated fossils for years before CT scanning suggested the specimen deserved more attention.

It turns out that its tall, scythe-like beak, while resembling the toucan, is something never before seen in the fossil record.

Birds in the Mesozoic era - between 250 million and 65 million years ago - had "relatively unspecialised snouts", Patrick O'Connor, lead author of a study on the new creature, told AFP.

"Falcatakely just changed the game completely, documenting a long, high beak unlike anything known in the Mesozoic," added O'Connor, professor of anatomy and neuroscience at Ohio University.

The skull, described in a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, offered other surprises.

While Falcatakely would have had a face quite familiar to us from such modern birds as toucans and hornbills, the bones that made up its face bear little resemblance to those modern creatures.

"Despite an overall face shape similar to modern birds like toucans, the underlying skeleton is much more similar to non-avian theropod dinosaurs like Deinonychus and Velociraptor," O'Connor said.

That "turns what we know about Mesozoic bird anatomy upside-down." Read the free article.