Dino Wiki
Dino Wiki / All dinos / Early birds
Cartoon of Halimornis
Dino card No. 0775 of 2,027

Halimornis

Say it: hal-ih-MORE-nis
Name means: “bird of the sea”1
Ate: MeatEarly birdsLate Cretaceous

Halimornis was a seabird that lived during the time of dinosaurs, about 80 million years ago. It flew over the shallow sea that once covered what is now Alabama, USA. This bird was an enantiornithine, a group of ancient birds that had teeth and claws on their wings.1

Lived
84 to 72 million years ago4
Late Cretaceous
Fossils found in
Mooreville Chalk Formation, Greene County, Alabama, USA1
Food
Meat2
Length
0.328 m3
Weight
0.49 kg3
Height
0.143 m3
at the hips

When did it live?

Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

Halimornis about 0.328 m longA house cat about 0.5 mA dog about 1 mA bicycle about 1.8 m

How tall was it?

Halimornisabout 0.143 m tallA house catabout 0.3 mA dogabout 0.6 m🚊A doorabout 2 m

at the hips

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 4 bananas
lighter than a house cat

How big was Halimornis compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Halimornis is one of the few enantiornithine birds known to have lived in a marine environment, far out at sea.1

2

Its fossil was found about 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the ancient shoreline, showing it was an ocean-going bird.1

3

The name Halimornis means 'bird of the sea' in Greek.1

4

Halimornis lived alongside another seabird called Ichthyornis dispar.1

5

Only one fossil of Halimornis has been found, including vertebrae, leg bones, and part of a humerus (upper arm bone).1

6

The area where Halimornis lived was once the southern coast of the Western Interior Seaway, a shallow sea that split North America in two.1

AI-madeAI-made picture of Halimornis
An AI-made picture of how Halimornis 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.

Ask Rex about Halimornis

Rex only answers questions about this page. 3 questions a day.

Rex is an AI and can make mistakes. He runs on servers in the EU and questions are never saved. Never type your name or other personal things.

For dino experts

Scientific name
Halimornis
Named by
Chiappe et al. 20024
Group
Early birds
Family / clade
Avisauridae4
Classification
Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks
84 to 72 million years (Campanian)4
Rock formations
Mooreville Chalk4
Countries
USA4
Fossil records
1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery
Halimornis was named by Chiappe, Lamb, and Ericson in 2002 based on a single partial skeleton found in Alabama, USA.12
Still debated
Scientists are still unsure about the exact size and appearance of Halimornis because only one partial skeleton has been found.1

Where the facts come from

  1. Halimornis (en.wikipedia.org)
  2. PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
  3. Halimornis – Encyklopedia Dinozaury.com (encyklopedia.dinozaury.com)
  4. Halimornis 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.

Rex is hungry! Dino Wiki is a dad's project for his dino-loving son, free with no ads. Grown-ups can feed Rex a snack to help keep it online.Feed Rex

More from the same group: Early birds

ArchaeopteryxEarly birdsHesperornisEarly birdsIchthyornisEarly birdsBaptornisEarly birdsJurapteryxEarly birdsGobipteryxEarly birds

Also from the same time: Late Cretaceous

TyrannosaurusTyrannosaursTriceratopsHorned dinosVelociraptorRaptorsSpinosaurusSpinosaursAnkylosaurusArmoured dinosParasaurolophusDuck-bills
Ask RexAI dino helperFeed Rextip jar for grown-ups