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Yuornis

Say it: yoo-OR-nis

Name means: “Henan bird, after the Chinese abbreviation for Henan province”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsLate Cretaceous

Yuornis was a bird that lived alongside the last dinosaurs. It had a toothless beak, just like modern birds, which was very rare for its time.1

Lived

72 to 66 million years ago3

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Qiupa Formation, Luanchuan Basin, Henan, China3 1

Food

Meat3

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Yuornis is one of the most complete Late Cretaceous enantiornithine birds ever found, with a three-dimensionally preserved skull.1

Unlike most enantiornithines, Yuornis had no teeth. Its skull looked a lot like modern birds because it lost several bones, like the lacrimal and postorbital.1

The name Yuornis comes from 'Yu', the one-character abbreviation for Henan province in China, where it was discovered.1

Yuornis lived about 72 to 66 million years ago, during the very end of the Age of Dinosaurs.3

Its closest relative might be Gobipteryx, another toothless bird from the Late Cretaceous, but scientists are not sure because tooth loss evolved many times.1

AI-made picture of Yuornis — An AI-made picture of how Yuornis 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: Yuornis
Named by: Xu et al. 20213
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Enantiornithes3
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae3
Age of the rocks: 72 to 66 million years (Maastrichtian)3
Rock formations: Qiupa3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 1 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Yuornis was named in 2021 by Xu Li and colleagues. The species name junchangi honors paleontologist Lü Junchang. The fossil was found in the Qiupa Formation of Henan, China.1 2
Still debated: Scientists are not sure whether Yuornis belongs to the family Gobipterygidae, because the features linking it to that group are all related to tooth loss, which evolved many times separately.1

Where the facts come from

Yuornis (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Yuornis 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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