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Houornis

Say it: HOO-or-nis

Name means: “Hou's bird, after the paleontologist Hou Lianhu”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Houornis was a tiny, toothy bird that lived in China about 120 million years ago. It had perching feet and a surprisingly long tail made of fused bones. This little bird was an enantiornithean, a group of early birds that went extinct with the dinosaurs.1

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago2

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China, near the town of Boluochi1 2

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Houornis is known from only one main fossil, which is not preserved as bones but as impressions left in the rock.1

Its tail was originally thought to be long and bony like Archaeopteryx, but scientists later realized it had a long pygostyle, a fused tail bone.1

The upper arm bone of Houornis is less than 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) long, making it a very small bird.1

Houornis was once classified as a species of Cathayornis, but in 2015 it was given its own genus because of unique features like its large pygostyle.1

Some scientists have considered Houornis a doubtful species because the fossil is poorly preserved, but a 2015 study found it was distinct enough to keep.1

AI-made picture of Houornis — An AI-made picture of how Houornis 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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Myth buster

Myth: Houornis had a long, bony tail like a dinosaur.

Truth: Houornis actually had a short tail with a long pygostyle (fused tail vertebrae), not a long bony tail. The original mistake came from misidentifying hip bones as tail vertebrae.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Houornis
Named by: Wang and Liu 20152
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Enantiornithes2
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae2
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)2
Rock formations: Jiufotang2
Countries: China2
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: The only known fossil of Houornis was found in 1993 by Zhou Zhonghe near Boluochi, China. It was first named Cathayornis caudatus by Hou Lianhu in 1997, and then renamed Houornis by Wang and Liu in 2015.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how Houornis is related to other enantiornithean birds, because its fossil is too incomplete for a detailed family tree analysis.1

Where the facts come from

Houornis (en.wikipedia.org)
Houornis 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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