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Yuanchuavis

Say it: yoo-an-CHOO-ay-vis

Name means: “mythical bird from Chinese legend”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Yuanchuavis was a bird that lived in the age of dinosaurs. It had a fancy tail with two very long feathers, like a pintail. This bird probably used its long tail to show off to other birds.1 2

Lived

143 to 100 million years ago4

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China1

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Yuanchuavis lived about 120 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous.1

Its tail feathers were 30 centimeters long, which is 1.3 times the length of its body.1

The long central tail feathers were probably used to attract mates, like a peacock's tail.1 2

Yuanchuavis belonged to a group of birds called enantiornithes, which were very common in the Mesozoic.1

This bird had a short, strong pygostyle (tailbone) to support its fancy tail feathers.1

Yuanchuavis had five teeth in its upper jaw, but the tip of its beak had no teeth.1

It lived in trees, based on its foot bones.1

AI-made picture of Yuanchuavis — An AI-made picture of how Yuanchuavis 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: Yuanchuavis
Named by: Wang et al. 20214
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Pengornithidae4
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks: 143 to 100 million years (Berriasian / Albian)4
Rock formations: Jiufotang4
Countries: China4
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Yuanchuavis was named in 2021 by Wang and colleagues. The fossil was found near Xiaoyaogou in Liaoning, China.1 3
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how Yuanchuavis used its long tail feathers, but they think it was for showing off.1

Where the facts come from

An Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird with a pintail: Current Biology (cell.com)
An Early Cretaceous enantiornithine bird with a pintail (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Yuanchuavis 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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