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Eogranivora

Say it: ee-oh-GRAN-ih-VORE-uh

Name means: “early seed-eater”1

Ate: PlantsEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Eogranivora was a small, toothless bird that lived in ancient China. It loved to eat seeds, and we know this because scientists found seeds and gizzard stones inside its fossil!1

Lived

126 to 120 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Dawangzhangzi, Liaoning Province, China3 1

Food

Plants1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Eogranivora is the only Early Cretaceous ornithuromorph bird that has direct evidence of eating seeds.1

It had no teeth at all, which is unusual for a bird from its time. Many other early birds still had small teeth.1

Eogranivora had no hallux, the backward-pointing toe that most birds use to perch. This suggests it lived on the ground.1

Its fossil was first thought to be a different bird called Hongshanornis, but scientists later realized it was a new species.2

The fossil preserves at least 15 seeds inside the crop area, each about 4.3 mm long.1

Eogranivora lived about 125 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period.1

AI-made picture of Eogranivora — An AI-made picture of how Eogranivora 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: Eogranivora
Named by: Zheng et al. 20183
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Ornithuromorpha3
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae3
Age of the rocks: 126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)3
Rock formations: Yixian3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Eogranivora was named in 2018 by Zheng Xiaoting and colleagues. The fossil was found at Dawangzhangzi in China and was originally mistaken for Hongshanornis.2 1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Eogranivora ate only seeds or also other foods, because some modern birds that eat hard items also use gizzard stones.1

Where the facts come from

royalsocietypublishing.org (royalsocietypublishing.org)
Eogranivora (en.wikipedia.org)
Eogranivora 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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