Dino card No. 0238 of 2,015

Baptornis

Say it: bap-TOR-nis

Name means: “diving bird”1

Ate: FishEarly birdsLate Cretaceous

Baptornis was a flightless diving bird that lived in the Late Cretaceous seas. It swam like a loon and used its beak to catch fish. Unlike most birds today, it had teeth in its beak.1

Lived

90 to 72 million years ago2

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Kansas, USA; Alberta and Saskatchewan, Canada; and Ivö Island, Sweden1 2

Food

Fish1

Length

0.8 to 1 m1

estimated, about the size of a loon

Weight

3 kg to 5 kg1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

Baptornis had teeth in its beak, which is rare for birds. Most modern birds have no teeth.1

It was a strong swimmer and diver, but on land it was clumsy. It probably pushed itself along on its belly or did small hops.1

Fossils of young Baptornis have been found in Canada and Alaska, suggesting these birds migrated north to breed in summer, like some penguins do today.1

Baptornis lived about 87 to 80 million years ago, when a shallow sea covered much of central North America.1

One Baptornis fossil was found with tiny round coprolites (fossil poop) inside. The poop contained remains of a small sabre-toothed herring.1

Baptornis was one of the first Mesozoic birds discovered, along with Archaeopteryx. It was named by famous fossil hunter Othniel Charles Marsh in 1877.1

A second, much larger species of Baptornis was once named (Baptornis varneri), but later scientists moved it to a different genus called Brodavis.1

AI-made picture of Baptornis — An AI-made picture of how Baptornis might have looked, made by a computer from what scientists know. It is a guess: the real animal may have looked different, and nobody knows its true colours.

For dino experts

Scientific name: Baptornis
Named by: Marsh 18772
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Baptornithidae2
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae2
Age of the rocks: 90 to 72 million years (Coniacian to Campanian)2
Rock formations: Dinosaur Park, Niobrara, Judith River2
Countries: Canada, USA, Sweden2
Fossil records: 10 in the Paleobiology Database2
Also known as: Parascaniornis (older names now counted as the same animal)2
Discovery: Othniel Charles Marsh discovered the first fossils of Baptornis in Kansas in the 1870s. He named it in 1877.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if a fossil from Sweden called Parascaniornis stensioi is actually a second species of Baptornis or just the same species.1

Where the facts come from

Baptornis (en.wikipedia.org)
Baptornis in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

Every fact on this page has a number that points to its source. If we got something wrong, sorry, we are dino fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.