Dino card No. 1630 of 2,027

Shangyang

Say it: SHANG-yang

Name means: “mythical Chinese rainbird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Shangyang was a tiny bird that lived alongside dinosaurs. It had a long, slender body and a fancy head crest that may have shimmered with red and blue colors.1 2

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China1 2

Food

Meat3

Length

0.2 to 0.3 m2

estimated from small size of skeleton

Weight

0.05 kg to 0.1 kg2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

How heavy was it?

as heavy as 1 bananas

lighter than a house cat

How big was Shangyang compared to YOU?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Shangyang had a pair of bony prongs on its breastbone called craniolateral processes, which helped attach a muscle used for flapping its wings down.2

Its upper jaw bones (premaxillae) were completely fused together, a rare feature in early birds from the Cretaceous.2

A nearly complete fossil of Shangyang found in 2025 had preserved feathers on its head crest, and scientists think they were red to deep blue and iridescent.1

Shangyang lived about 125 to 120 million years ago in the Early Cretaceous period.1

The name Shangyang comes from a mythical Chinese bird that was said to bring rain.1

AI-made picture of Shangyang — An AI-made picture of how Shangyang 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: Shangyang
Named by: Wang and Zhou 20194
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: Shangyang was named by scientists Min Wang and Zhonghe Zhou in 2019, based on a nearly complete skeleton found in the Jiufotang Formation of China.3 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure if a newer, more complete fossil belongs to the same species as the original Shangyang, because its breastbone and wishbone are slightly different.1

Where the facts come from

Shangyang graciles (en.wikipedia.org)
[dinosaur] Shangyang, new enantiornithine from Early Cretaceous of China. (reptilis.net)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Shangyang 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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