Dino card No. 1890 of 2,027

Vescornis

Say it: ves-KOR-nis

Name means: “evening bird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Vescornis was a tiny, feathered dinosaur that could fly. It lived during the Early Cretaceous, about 122 million years ago, in what is now China. This little bird had long foot claws and short wing fingers, which made it great at flying but not so good at climbing trees.1 2

Lived

126 to 120 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Hebei Province, China1 2

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Vescornis had very small wing claws and long, strong foot claws, which helped it fly better but made it worse at climbing than many other early birds.2

The only known fossil of Vescornis was first thought to come from the Yixian Formation, but later geologists realized it was actually from the Huajiying Formation.1

Vescornis might be the same animal as another early bird called Jibeinia, but scientists are not sure because the Jibeinia fossil got lost.1

The name 'Hebeiornis' was given to the same fossil in 1999, but that name is not used because it was not described well enough.1

Vescornis lived about 122 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period.1

AI-made picture of Vescornis — An AI-made picture of how Vescornis 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 Vescornis was a true bird like modern birds.

Truth: Vescornis was an enantiornithine, a group of ancient birds that had teeth and claws, and it is not a direct ancestor of today's birds.1

For dino experts

Scientific name: Vescornis
Named by: Zhang et al. 20044
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Enantiornithes4
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks: 126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)4
Rock formations: Yixian4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: The fossil was found in Hebei Province, China, and was described by Zhang and colleagues in 2004. It is stored at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology.1
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Vescornis is the same species as Jibeinia, because the Jibeinia fossil is lost and the two look very similar.1

Where the facts come from

Vescornis (en.wikipedia.org)
Description of a new enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of Hebei, northern China (cdnsciencepub.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Vescornis 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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