Elektorornis is an extinct genus of enantiornithean bird known from a partial hindlimb and a small amount of wing plumage. It contains a single species, Elektorornis chenguangi. The hindlimb and feathers were preserved in a piece of 99 million year old Burmese Amber found in Myanmar. In life, the bird would have been slightly smaller than a sparrow and possibly used its characteristically elongated middle toe to probe for food. Elektorornis chenguangi is the first species of bird described from remains found in Burmese amber, although other undiagnostic enantiornithean specimens have previously been found in amber.[1][2][3] Elektorornis is Greek for 'amber bird'.
Elektorornis Temporal range: Late Cretaceous,
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Scientific classification | |
Domain: | Eukaryota |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Clade: | Dinosauria |
Clade: | Saurischia |
Clade: | Theropoda |
Clade: | Avialae |
Clade: | †Enantiornithes |
Genus: | †Elektorornis Xing et al., 2019 |
Species: | †E. chenguangi
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Binomial name | |
†Elektorornis chenguangi Xing et al., 2019
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References
edit- ^ Xing, Lida; O’Connor, Jingmai K.; Chiappe, Luis M.; McKellar, Ryan C.; Carroll, Nathan; Hu, Han; Bai, Ming; Lei, Fumin (2019). "A New Enantiornithine Bird with Unusual Pedal Proportions Found in Amber". Current Biology. 29 (14): 2396–2401. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.05.077. PMID 31303484.
- ^ "Elektorornis chenuangi". PBDB.
- ^ "An Ancient Bird With an Insanely Long Toe Has Been Found Preserved in Amber". Science Alert. Archived from the original on 2019-08-16. Retrieved 2019-08-16.
External links
edit- Data related to Elektorornis at Wikispecies