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Longicrusavis

Say it: LON-jee-kroo-SAY-vis

Name means: “long shin bird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Longicrusavis was a small, long-legged bird that lived in ancient China. It had a long, thin beak and probably used its long legs to wade in shallow water looking for food.1

Lived

126 to 120 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Dawangzhangzi village, Liaoning Province, China1 2

Food

Meat1 2

Length

0.1 to 0.3 m2

estimate based on small size of related birds

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

Longicrusavis had very long legs compared to its arms, which helped it wade in water like a modern heron.1

Its fossil preserves carbonized traces of feathers, showing it had full plumage with visible colouration around the head and forelimbs.1

Longicrusavis had a long, fan-shaped tail that improved its flight, and scientists think it is one of the oldest birds with this type of tail.1

It belonged to a group called Hongshanornithidae, named after the Hongshan culture, one of China's oldest recorded cultures.1

Longicrusavis lived about 122 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous period.1

The only known fossil of Longicrusavis is nearly complete and belongs to an adult individual.1

AI-made picture of Longicrusavis — An AI-made picture of how Longicrusavis 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: Longicrusavis
Named by: O'Connor et al. 20104
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Hongshanornithidae4
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: Longicrusavis was named by O'Connor, Gao, and Chiappe in 2010 based on a nearly complete skeleton found at Dawangzhangzi in Liaoning, China.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Longicrusavis had teeth in its upper jaw, because the fossil shows tooth sockets but no teeth are preserved.1

Where the facts come from

Longicrusavis (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
J.K. O'Connor et al., 2010. <i>Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology</i> <b>30</b> (2) - Reference Details - The Taxonomicon (taxonomicon.taxonomy.nl)
Longicrusavis in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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