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Zhouornis

Say it: joh-OR-niss

Name means: “Zhou's bird, after Chinese paleontologist Zhou Zhonghe”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsEarly Cretaceous

Zhouornis was a big, toothed bird that lived in ancient China. It was one of the largest birds of its time, with a skull that looked a bit like a dinosaur's. It could fly and hunt for food.1

Lived

121 to 113 million years ago3

Early Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Liaoning Province, China2

Food

Meat2

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

cool stuff

Fun facts

Zhouornis lived about 121 to 113 million years ago during the Early Cretaceous.2

Its skull had a large basipterygoid process and a well-developed basisphenoid recess, features also found in non-avian dinosaurs.1

The only known fossil is a nearly complete skeleton with some feathers preserved.2

Zhouornis was not fully grown when it died, but it was already one of the largest enantiornithine birds known.1

It belongs to a group called Enantiornithes, which were the most common birds during the Cretaceous.2

The fossil was found in the Jiufotang Formation, a famous rock layer that has produced many other early birds.2

AI-made picture of Zhouornis — An AI-made picture of how Zhouornis 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: Zhouornis
Named by: Zhang et al. 20133
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Bohaiornithidae3
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae3
Age of the rocks: 121 to 113 million years (Aptian)3
Rock formations: Jiufotang3
Countries: China3
Fossil records: 2 in the Paleobiology Database3
Discovery: Zhouornis was named in 2013 by Zihui Zhang and colleagues based on a single fossil skeleton from Chaoyang County, Liaoning, China.1
Still debated: Scientists are not sure exactly how large Zhouornis could grow as an adult, because the only known fossil is from a young individual.1

Where the facts come from

A large bird from the Early Cretaceous of China: new information on the skull of enantiornithines (tandfonline.com)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Zhouornis 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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