Liaoxiornis
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| Liaoxiornis | ||||||||||
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Fossil of Liaoxiornis delicatus , Museo Geominero de Madrid |
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| Lower Cretaceous | ||||||||||
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| Systematics | ||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||
| Liaoxiornis | ||||||||||
| Hou & Chen , 1999 |
Liaoxiornis is the smallest Mesozoic bird in the Jehol biota .
features
Liaoxiornis is about the size of a sparrow . It has a large, deep-set skull with toothed jaws. It has both primitive and more developed feathers. His thigh bones are longer than his upper arm bones. His pygostyle is also longer than his neck. His metacarpal bones are fused together and he has fewer fingers than Archeopteryx or Confuciusornis . The only known specimen is only juvenile or subadult and therefore not very taxonomically meaningful.
species
Only the species Liaoxiornis delicates HOU, CHEN, 1999 is known with a type specimen at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology. A month after this publication, a specimen was described by Li and Li as Lingyuanornis parvus at the National Geological Museum of China ( Beijing ) . Soon afterwards it turned out that both museums had acquired different pages (positive and negative impressions) of the exact same copy. Since Liaoxiornis delicatus was determined by the earlier description, this is the valid name and Lingyuanornis parvus is merely a synonym.
literature
- Mee-mann Chang: The Jehol Fossils, The Emergence of Feathered Dinosaurs, Beaked Birds and Flowering Plants , Academic Press, Amsterdam, Boston, Heidelberg, London, New York, Oxford, Paris, San Diego, San Francisco, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo , 2003, ISBN 978-0-12-374173-8
Individual evidence
- ↑ Hou, L., Chen, P.-J. (1999) " Liaoxiornis delicatus gen. Et sp. Nov., The smallest Mesozoic bird . Chinese Science Bulletin 44 (9): 834-838.
- ↑ Ji, Qiang, Ji, S.-A. (1999) "A new genus of the Mesozoic birds from Lingyuan, Liaoning, China". "Chinese Geology" 262: 45-48.
- ↑ Chiappe, Luis, Walker, Cyril A. (2001) "Euenantiornithes" in "Mesozoic Birds: above the heads of dinosaurs". Chiappe and Witmer, ed. 2001, University of California Press