Dino card No. 1940 of 2,027

Xinghaiornis

Say it: zing-HIGH-or-niss

Name means: “Xinghai bird, named after the Xinghai Museum in China”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Xinghaiornis was a bird that lived about 125 million years ago. It had a long, toothless beak and probably poked in mud for food. It was a dinosaur, but a very bird-like one!2 1

Lived

126 to 120 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Fossils were found in the Yixian Formation in Liaoning Province, China.1 3

Food

Meat3 2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Xinghaiornis had a long, toothless beak, which is unusual for early birds.2

Its feet had a raised first toe, which may have helped it walk on soft mud.2

Scientists think it was a mud-prober, meaning it stuck its beak into mud to find food.2

This bird lived about 125 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous period.1 2

Xinghaiornis is known from a single fossil found at Sihetun, Shangyuan Town in China.3

AI-made picture of Xinghaiornis — An AI-made picture of how Xinghaiornis 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: Xinghaiornis
Named by: Wang et al. 20133
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Ornithothoraces3
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae3
Age of the rocks: 126 to 120 million years (Barremian / Aptian)3
Rock formations: Yixian3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Xinghaiornis was named by Xuri Wang and colleagues in 2013. The fossil was prepared by Maureen Walsh at the Dalian Museum of Prehistory in China.1
Still debated: Scientists are still debating exactly how Xinghaiornis is related to other early birds, because it shows a mix of features.2

Where the facts come from

Xinghaiornis (en.wikipedia.org)
Xinghaiornis lini (Aves: Ornithothoraces) from the Early Cretaceous of Liaoning: An Example of Evolutionary Mosaic in Early Birds (geojournals.cn)
Xinghaiornis in The Paleobiology Database (CC BY 4.0): age, places, rock formations, classification.

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