Yanornis
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Yanornis fossil |
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| Lower Cretaceous | ||||||||||||
| 125 to 120 million years | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Yanornis | ||||||||||||
| Zhou & Zhang , 2001 | ||||||||||||
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Yanornis is an extinct bird - species , which in the early Cretaceous lived, and a member of the group primordial Ornithurae which all modern birds belong. The description of the species Yanornis martini is based on fossils that were found in the Jiufotang Formation near Chaoyang , western Liáoníng Province of the People's Republic of China . Five copies were known by 2004.
etymology
The word creation Yanornis is derived from the ancient Chinese Yan dynasties , whose capital was Chaoyang, and from the ancient Greek word όρνις (ornis) for bird; the species name martini was chosen in honor of the paleornithologist Larry D. Martin .
description
Yanornis reached the size of a fully grown pigeon, the skull was elongated and had 10 teeth in the upper jaw and 20 teeth in the lower jaw. The bird mainly fed on fish. In adapting to this diet, Yanornis acquired some morphological features that are also convergent in the Cretaceous bird Longipteryx , which belongs to the non-related group of the enantiornithes . The wishbone and teeth, however, are more like the enantiornithine genus Aberratiodontus .
The absence of the prefrontal (frontal frontal bone ) and a skull that is very much derived from the primitive Diapsida skull anatomy confirm Yanornis' affiliation to the Ornithurae , to which the common ancestor of all bird species living today belonged. The fork bone (furcula) was U-shaped and derived in its morphology. The shape and arrangement of the shoulder blade and raven bone were similar to those of modern birds. Because of this, Yanornis was able to raise his wings over his back and perform an efficient serve . Compared to the enantiornithes and the basal birds Confuciusornis and Archeopteryx , it had a much better flight ability. The muscles required for an energetic flight required a solid attachment surface, so in Yanornis the length of the sternum exceeded its width - this is also a modern development trend.
Taxonomy and systematics
Yanornis gained fame through a paleontological fraud when the front half of a bird was combined with the tail of a microraptor and then introduced as an " archaeoraptor " . After the forgery was evident, the half of the bird was described as Archaeovolans repatriatus and later recognized as belonging to the Yanornis .
A systematic study in 2006 on the family relationships of modern birds came to the conclusion that Yanornis , Yixianornis and Songlingornis form a monophyletic group - since Songlingornithidae was the genus described first, the name of this taxon should be Songlingornithidae . That Yanornis is just a synonym for Songlinornis is not supported by all phylogenetic analyzes.
Footnotes
- ↑ Zhou et al. (2002)
- ↑ Zhou & Zhang (2001)
- ↑ a b c Gong et al. (2004)
- ↑ Senter (2006)
- ↑ Clarke et al. (2006)
- ↑ Mortimer (2004)
swell
- Clarke, Julia A .; Zhou, Zhonghe & Zhang, Fucheng: Insight into the evolution of avian flight from a new clade of Early Cretaceous ornithurines from China and the morphology of Yixianornis grabaui. In: Journal of Anatomy . Volume 208, No. 3, 2006, pp. 287-308, doi: 10.1111 / j.1469-7580.2006.00534.x .
- Gong, enpu; Hou, Lianhai & Wang, Lixia: Enantiornithine Bird with Diapsidian Skull and Its Dental Development in the Early Cretaceous in Liaoning, China. In: Acta Geologica Sinica. Volume 78, No. 1, 2004, pp. 1-7 ( PDF ).
- Michael Mortimer: The Theropod Database: Phylogeny of taxa ( Memento of March 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive ). 2004, accessed October 29, 2007.
- Phil Senter: Scapular orientation in theropods and basal birds, and the origin of flapping flight. In: Acta Palaeontologica Polonica. Volume 51, No. 2, 2006, pp. 305-313 ( PDF ).
- Zhou, Zhonghe & Zhang, Fucheng: Two new ornithurine birds from the Early Cretaceous of western Liaoning, China. Chinese Science Bulletin. Volume 46, No. 15, 2001, pp. 1258-1264.
- Zhou, Zhonghe; Clarke, Julia A. & Zhang, Fucheng: Archaeoraptor's better helped. Nature . Volume 420, 2002, p. 285, doi: 10.1038 / 420285a .
- Zhou, Zhonghe; Clarke, Julia A .; Zhang, Fucheng & Wings, O .: Gastroliths in Yanornis : an indication of the earliest radical diet-switching and gizzard plasticity in the lineage leading to living birds? In: Natural Sciences. Volume 91, 2004, pp. 571-574 ( PDF ).
