Dino card No. 0924 of 2,027

Jiuquanornis

Say it: joo-CHWAN-or-nis

Name means: “Jiuquan bird, named after the city near where it was found”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Jiuquanornis was a small, bird-like dinosaur that lived about 120 million years ago. It had a U-shaped wishbone and a sternum that looked like those of some modern ground birds. Scientists think it might have been a fast runner that ate meat.1 2

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago2

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Changma Basin, Gansu Province, northwestern China2 1

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Jiuquanornis is known from a single fossil that was first described in 2013. The fossil includes parts of the sternum, furcula, and forelimb.1

Its sternum had long, thin projections called trabeculae, which are also seen in modern ground-dwelling birds like chickens and tinamous.1

Jiuquanornis had a U-shaped furcula (wishbone) with a low angle of about 36 degrees, and it lacked a hypocleidium, a small projection found in some birds.1

Scientists think Jiuquanornis was a basal ornithuromorph, meaning it was an early relative of modern birds but not a direct ancestor.1

The fossil of Jiuquanornis was found in the Xiagou Formation, which is about 121 to 113 million years old, from the Early Cretaceous period.2 1

Jiuquanornis was named after the city of Jiuquan, which is near the fossil site. The species name niui honors Professor Shao-Wu Niu for his geological work.1

The fossil of Jiuquanornis was originally thought to be too incomplete to name, but scientists later decided it was different enough from other birds to be a new species.1

AI-made picture of Jiuquanornis — An AI-made picture of how Jiuquanornis 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: Jiuquanornis
Named by: Wang et al. 20132
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Ornithuromorpha2
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae2
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)2
Rock formations: Xiagou2
Countries: China2
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database2
Discovery: Jiuquanornis was named in 2013 by Wang and colleagues. The fossil, specimen GSGM-05-CM-021, was found in the Xiagou Formation near Changma in Gansu Province, China. It was first described as an unnamed bird in 2005, but later recognized as a new species.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Jiuquanornis lived on the ground or in the water, because its fossil is too incomplete to tell. Its sternum shape suggests it might have been a fast runner, but more fossils are needed.1

Where the facts come from

Previously Unrecognized Ornithuromorph Bird Diversity in the Early Cretaceous Changma Basin, Gansu Province, Northwestern China (journals.plos.org)
Jiuquanornis in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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