Dino card No. 1688 of 2,027

Songlingornis

Say it: song-ling-OR-nis

Name means: “Songling bird, named after a place in China”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Songlingornis was an ancient bird that lived in China during the Early Cretaceous, about 121 to 113 million years ago. It had a slender, long beak with many teeth, and it walked on the ground looking for food like a small carnivore.1 2

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China (near Boluochi, Chaoyang County)1 2

Food

Meat1 1

Length

0.1 to 1 m1

estimate based on adult length category in PBDB

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

as long as 2 house cats nose to tailas long as 6 bananas end to end

How big was Songlingornis compared to YOU?

Just maths in your browser. Nothing is saved or sent anywhere.

cool stuff

Fun facts

Songlingornis had more than nine teeth in its lower jaw, which is unusual for many early birds.1

Its sternum (breastbone) had a deep groove for the coracoid bone and a keel, which helped it fly.1

The only known fossil of Songlingornis is a partial skeleton missing the skull and forelimb, found in the Jiufotang Formation, a famous fossil site in China.1

It lived alongside fish, other birds like Cathayornis and Chaoyangia, and many other creatures in a lake environment.2

Scientists classify Songlingornis as an ornithuromorph bird, meaning it is more closely related to modern birds than to enantiornithines.1

AI-made picture of Songlingornis — An AI-made picture of how Songlingornis 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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Myth buster

Myth: Some people think Songlingornis was a dinosaur because it lived in the Mesozoic Era.

Truth: Songlingornis was a bird, and birds are a type of dinosaur (theropod), so it is both a bird and a dinosaur at the same time.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Songlingornis
Named by: Hou 19973
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Hongshanornithidae3
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: The Chinese paleontologist Hou Lianhai named Songlingornis in 1997, based on a partial skeleton discovered in the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning Province, China. The fossil was collected during searches for ancient fish in the 1990s.1 2
Still debated: Scientists debate whether Songlingornis belongs to the family Hongshanornithidae or Songlingornithidae, because the skeleton is incomplete and different studies place it in different groups.1

Where the facts come from

PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Mesozoic Birds of China (naturalhistory.si.edu)
Songlingornis 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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