Dino card No. 2021 of 2,027

Zhyraornis

Name means: “split bird”1

Ate: MeatEarly birdsLate Cretaceous

Zhyraornis was a small, meat-eating bird that lived during the time of the dinosaurs. It ran around on the ground in what is now Uzbekistan, hunting for insects and other tiny creatures.4 1

Lived

100 to 90 million years ago4

Late Cretaceous

Fossils found in

Uzbekistan (Karakalpakstan and Navoi regions)2 1

Food

Meat4

Length

0.225 m3

estimate based on fragmentary remains

When did it live?

Triassic

Jurassic

Cretaceous

252 million years ago20114566, the asteroid

How big was it?

How long was it?

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cool stuff

Fun facts

Zhyraornis lived between about 100 and 90 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period.2

Scientists know Zhyraornis only from a few pieces of its hip bones, called synsacra.1

Two species of Zhyraornis have been named: Zhyraornis kashkarovi and Zhyraornis logunovi.4 1

Zhyraornis was a ground-dwelling bird, not a strong flier.2

Paleontologists are not sure exactly how Zhyraornis is related to other birds. Some think it was an early relative of modern birds, while others place it in a different group called Enantiornithes.1

AI-made picture of Zhyraornis — An AI-made picture of how Zhyraornis 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: Zhyraornis
Named by: Nessov 19844
Group: Early birds
Family / clade: Alexornithidae4
Classification: Theropoda > Avialae4
Age of the rocks: 100 to 90 million years (Cenomanian / Turonian)4
Rock formations: Bissekty, Khodzhakul4
Countries: Uzbekistan4
Fossil records: 3 in the Paleobiology Database4
Discovery: Zhyraornis was named by Russian paleontologist Lev Nessov in 1984. He described it from fossils found in the Bissekty Formation of Uzbekistan.4 1
Still debated: Scientists still debate whether Zhyraornis belongs to the Enantiornithes (opposite birds) or to the Ornithuromorpha (the group that includes modern birds).1

Where the facts come from

Zhyraornis (en.wikipedia.org)
PBDB Taxon (paleobiodb.org)
Re: bird sizes (reptilis.net)
Zhyraornis 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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