Dino card No. 0747 of 2,027

Grabauornis

Say it: gra-BOW-orn-is

Name means: “Grabau's bird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Grabauornis was a small, toothed bird that lived about 125 million years ago in what is now China. It was a good flyer and had a special thumb feather called an alula that helped it steer in the air.1 2

Lived

126 to 120 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China1 3

Food

Meat1 3

Length

0.1 to 0.3 m3

estimated from adult length range in PBDB (10 to <100 cm)

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Grabauornis belongs to a group of early birds called enantiornitheans, which were the most common birds during the Age of Dinosaurs.1

Its humerus (upper arm bone) was 95% the length of its ulna (forearm bone), which is about average for enantiornitheans and shows it was a capable flyer.1 2

The fossil of Grabauornis was found in the Yixian Formation, a famous rock layer that has preserved many amazing feathered dinosaurs and early birds.1 3

Grabauornis had an alula, a small feather on its thumb that helped it fly slowly and land precisely, like the flaps on an airplane wing.1 2

The name Grabauornis honors Amadeus William Grabau, a famous geologist and paleontologist who worked in China.1

Its wishbone had a well-developed hypocleidium, a part that helped strengthen its chest for powerful wing beats.1

AI-made picture of Grabauornis — An AI-made picture of how Grabauornis 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: Grabauornis
Named by: Dalsatt et al. 20144
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Euenantiornithes4
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks: 126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)4
Rock formations: Yixian4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Grabauornis was named and described in 2014 by scientists Johan Dalsätt, Per Ericson, and Zhou Zhonghe. The fossil was found near the city of Lingyuan in Liaoning, China.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Grabauornis is related to other enantiornithean birds, since its skeleton shows a unique mix of features.1

Where the facts come from

Grabauornis (en.wikipedia.org)
A New Enantiornithes (Aves) from the Early Cretaceous of China (geojournals.cn)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Grabauornis 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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