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Monoenantiornis

Name means: “single opposite bird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Monoenantiornis was a small, toothed bird that lived in what is now China during the Early Cretaceous. It had strong legs and sharp teeth, and it probably hunted insects and other small animals.2

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Sihedang, Lingyuan, Liaoning Province, China2

Food

Meat2

Length

0.1 to 0.3 m2

estimated from PBDB adult length category 10 to <100 cm

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

Monoenantiornis had small teeth with pointed tips that were not curved backward, which is unusual for early birds.2

The only known fossil of Monoenantiornis is a nearly complete skeleton of a young bird that was still growing.3

Its foot had a very strong second toe and a delicate fourth toe, suggesting it used its feet for grabbing prey.2

Monoenantiornis lived about 121 to 113 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous period.2

It was an enantiornithine bird, a group that had teeth and claws on their wings, unlike modern birds.1

The fossil was found at the Sihedang locality, which is famous for preserving many other early bird fossils.3

AI-made picture of Monoenantiornis — An AI-made picture of how Monoenantiornis 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: Monoenantiornis
Named by: Hu and O'Connor 20174
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Enantiornithes4
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)4
Rock formations: Jiufotang4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Monoenantiornis was named by scientists Han Hu and Jingmai O'Connor in 2017 based on a single fossil skeleton from the Jiufotang Formation in China.2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how large adult Monoenantiornis grew, because the only known fossil is from a young individual.3

Where the facts come from

Monoenantiornis (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
[dinosaur] Monoenantiornis, new enantiornithine bird from Sihedang locality, Lower Cretaceous Yixian Formation, China (reptilis.net)
Monoenantiornis 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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