Dino card No. 1533 of 2,027

Rapaxavis

Say it: rap-AX-ay-vis

Name means: “grasping bird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Rapaxavis was a tiny bird that lived during the time of the dinosaurs. It had a long, curved beak and special feet that could grab onto branches like a modern parrot.2

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China1 3

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Rapaxavis had teeth only in the front of its upper and lower jaws, unlike many other birds.2

Its feet were perfectly adapted for grasping branches, making it one of the first birds known to be strongly arboreal (tree-living).2

The fossil of Rapaxavis was so well preserved that scientists could see the keratin sheaths on its toe claws.2

Rapaxavis lived about 113 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period.1

The holotype (main specimen) was a subadult, meaning it was not fully grown when it died.1

Its name comes from the Latin word 'rapax' meaning grasping, because of its strong feet.1

AI-made picture of Rapaxavis — An AI-made picture of how Rapaxavis 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: Rapaxavis
Named by: Morschhauser et al. 20093
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Longipterygidae3
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae3
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)3
Rock formations: Jiufotang3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Rapaxavis was named in 2009 by Eric Morschhauser and colleagues. The fossil was found by Pan Lijun at Xiaioyugou, China, and was first thought to be a different bird called Longirostravis.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if Rapaxavis was fully grown when it died, because its bones were not completely fused.2

Where the facts come from

Rapaxavis (en.wikipedia.org)
Anatomy of the Early Cretaceous bird Rapaxavis pani, a new species from Liaoning Province, China: Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology: Vol 29, No 2 (tandfonline.com)
Rapaxavis 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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