Dino card No. 0944 of 2,027

Kaririavis

Say it: KAH-ree-AH-vis

Name means: “Kariri bird, named after the Karirí people of northeastern Brazil”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Kaririavis was a tiny, sparrow-sized bird that lived about 115 million years ago in what is now Brazil. It is one of the oldest known birds of its group from the southern continents. Scientists know it from just one fossil foot, but that foot tells a big story!1 2

Lived

120 to 113 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Pedra Branca Mine, Nova Olinda County, Ceará State, Brazil1

Food

Meat3 1

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Kaririavis is the oldest known ornithuromorph bird from Gondwana, the ancient southern supercontinent.1 2

Its name honors the Karirí people, an indigenous group from northeastern Brazil.1

The fossil is just a single foot, but it includes at least 10 preserved contour feathers, which are the feathers that cover a bird's body.1

Kaririavis had a very large, hooked claw on its second toe, which was about one third the length of its foot bone.1

Unlike many early birds that lived near water, Kaririavis's foot shape suggests it may have spent most of its time on the ground.1

The fossil was found in the Crato Formation, a famous fossil site in Brazil known for preserving soft tissues like feathers.1

AI-made picture of Kaririavis — An AI-made picture of how Kaririavis 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: Kaririavis
Named by: Carvalho et al. 20214
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Ornithuromorpha4
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks: 120 to 113 million years (Aptian)4
Rock formations: Crato4
Countries: Brazil4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Kaririavis was named by Carvalho and colleagues in 2021, based on a fossil foot found at Pedra Branca Mine in Brazil. The species name 'mater' means 'mother' in Latin, because it is the oldest ornithuromorph from South America.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Kaririavis lived on the ground or in the trees, because its foot has a mix of features that point to different lifestyles.1

Where the facts come from

A new ornithuromorph bird from the Lower Cretaceous of South America (igeo.ufrj.br)
Kaririavis (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Kaririavis 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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