Dino card No. 0457 of 2,027

Cruralispennia

Say it: kroo-RAH-lis-PEN-ee-ah

Name means: “leg feather”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Cruralispennia was a tiny, feathered bird that lived about 131 million years ago in what is now China. It had strange, wiry feathers on its legs that no other bird had before or since!1

Lived

133 to 126 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Sichakou Basin, Fengning County, Hebei Province, northeastern China1

Food

Meat4

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Cruralispennia had a plough-shaped pygostyle, a fused tail bone that was thought to only exist in more advanced birds. This shows that different bird groups evolved similar features separately.1

Its leg feathers were unlike any seen before: the base was like a stiff wire, and the tip was fluffy and split into many tiny strands.1

Even though Cruralispennia lived very early in bird history, its shoulder bone (coracoid) was already very slender, a shape usually found in later Cretaceous birds.1

The name Cruralispennia means 'leg feather' in Latin, because of the unusual feathers on its shin bone (tibiotarsus).1

This bird had 14 teeth in its lower jaw, which is why its full species name is multidonta, meaning 'many teeth'.1

Cruralispennia lived alongside other early birds like Protopteryx and Eoconfuciusornis in the same ancient lake environment.1

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

you asked

Most asked questions about Cruralispennia

?How big was Cruralispennia?

Cruralispennia was a tiny bird, about the size of a modern sparrow. Its leg feathers were only 12 to 16 mm long.2 3

?Where did Cruralispennia live?

It lived in what is now China, around a lake in the Sichakou Basin about 131 million years ago.2

?What did Cruralispennia eat?

Scientists think Cruralispennia likely ate insects or small prey, because it had sharp, curved claws and many teeth in its lower jaw.2 3

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For dino experts

Scientific name: Cruralispennia
Named by: Wang et al. 20174
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Enantiornithes4
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks: 133 to 126 million years (Hauterivian)4
Rock formations: Huajiying4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Cruralispennia was named in 2017 by Min Wang and colleagues from a nearly complete skeleton found in the Huajiying Formation of China.4 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure what the strange leg feathers were used for. They might have helped with display, insulation, or even sensing the environment.1

Where the facts come from

npg.nature.com (npg.nature.com)
Cruralispennia (en.wikipedia.org)
A bizarre Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird with unique crural feathers and an ornithuromorph plough-shaped pygostyle | Nature Communications (nature.com)
Cruralispennia in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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