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Bauxitornis

Say it: BAWK-sit-OR-nis

Name means: “bird of the bauxite”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsLate Cretaceous

Bauxitornis was a bird that lived about 85 million years ago in what is now Hungary. It was about the size of a buzzard, making it one of the bigger birds of its time. This ancient bird was a meat-eater that walked on the ground.2 1 3

Lived

86 to 84 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Iharkút mine, Bakony mountains, Hungary3 2

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Bauxitornis is known only from a single right foot bone called a tarsometatarsus, which is 51 mm (2 inches) long.2

This bird was a type of enantiornithean, an extinct group of birds that had teeth and claws on their wings.2

Bauxitornis' outermost toe bone (metatarsal IV) was the longest, unlike most other birds where the middle toe bone is longest.2

The name Bauxitornis comes from the bauxite mine where its fossil was found.2 1

Bauxitornis was about the size of a modern buzzard, but it lived alongside dinosaurs during the Late Cretaceous.1

Its fossil was one of only about a dozen bird bones found among nearly 10,000 fossils from the Iharkút site.1

AI-made picture of Bauxitornis — An AI-made picture of how Bauxitornis 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.

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Bauxitornis
Named by: Dyke and Osi 20103
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Avisauridae3
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae3
Age of the rocks: 86 to 84 million years (Santonian)3
Rock formations: Csehbánya3
Countries: Hungary3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Bauxitornis was named in 2010 by Gareth J. Dyke and Attila Ősi after being mentioned in a 2008 review. The fossil was found in a bauxite mine in Hungary.2
Still debated: Scientists debate whether Bauxitornis is an avisaurid enantiornithean or a more primitive bird related to Balaur bondoc.2

Where the facts come from

Bauxitornis mindszentyae, Magyar Dinoszaurusz-kutató Expedíció (magyardinoszaurusz.hu)
Bauxitornis (en.wikipedia.org)
Bauxitornis 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.

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