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Musivavis

Say it: moo-zee-VAY-vis

Name means: “mosaic bird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Musivavis was a tiny, toothed bird that lived in what is now China during the Early Cretaceous. It had a mix of features from different bird groups, like a living mosaic, which is how it got its name.2

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Shangheshou locality, Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, China2

Food

Meat2 3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Musivavis is known from a single, nearly complete skeleton that is beautifully preserved on one slab of rock.2

It was much smaller than its closest relatives, the bohaiornithids, which were large-bodied enantiornithine birds.2

Its name comes from Latin words meaning 'mosaic' and 'bird', because it has a mix of features from different bird groups.2

Musivavis lived about 122 to 119 million years ago during the Aptian age of the Early Cretaceous.1

It had a furcula (wishbone) with a very deep groove and a sharp keel running along its entire underside.2

The specimen was a young adult, but scientists think it was almost full size when it died.2

AI-made picture of Musivavis — An AI-made picture of how Musivavis 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: Musivavis
Named by: Wang et al. 20224
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: Musivavis was named in 2022 by Wang and colleagues based on a nearly complete skeleton found in the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning, China.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly where Musivavis fits in the enantiornithine family tree, because different bird groups evolved similar features separately.2

Where the facts come from

Musivavis (en.wikipedia.org)
A new bohaiornithid-like bird from the Lower Cretaceous of China fills a gap in enantiornithine disparity | Journal of Paleontology | Cambridge Core (cambridge.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Musivavis 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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