''Avolatavis'' is an

extinct Extinction is the termination of an organism by the death of its Endling, last member. A taxon may become Functional extinction, functionally extinct before the death of its last member if it loses the capacity to Reproduction, reproduce and ...

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

stem Stem or STEM most commonly refers to: * Plant stem, a structural axis of a vascular plant * Stem group * Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics Stem or STEM can also refer to: Language and writing * Word stem, part of a word respon ...

parrot Parrots (Psittaciformes), also known as psittacines (), are birds with a strong curved beak, upright stance, and clawed feet. They are classified in four families that contain roughly 410 species in 101 genus (biology), genera, found mostly in ...

(pan-psittaciform) or a member of the stem group of Psittacopasseres (the

clade In biology, a clade (), also known as a Monophyly, monophyletic group or natural group, is a group of organisms that is composed of a common ancestor and all of its descendants. Clades are the fundamental unit of cladistics, a modern approach t ...

including both parrots and

passerine A passerine () is any bird of the order Passeriformes (; from Latin 'sparrow' and '-shaped') which includes more than half of all bird species. Sometimes known as perching birds, passerines generally have an anisodactyl arrangement of their ...

s), known from the early

Eocene The Eocene ( ) is a geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from about 56 to 33.9 million years ago (Ma). It is the second epoch of the Paleogene Period (geology), Period in the modern Cenozoic Era (geology), Era. The name ''Eocene'' comes ...

Fossil Butte Member of the

Green River Formation The Green River Formation is an Eocene geologic formation that records the sedimentation in a group of intermountain lakes in three basins along the present-day Green River (Colorado River), Green River in Colorado, Wyoming, and Utah. The sedimen ...

Wyoming Wyoming ( ) is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States, Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho t ...

, United States, and from the

London Clay The London Clay Formation is a Sediment#Shores and shallow seas, marine formation (geology), geological formation of Ypresian (early Eocene Epoch, c. 54-50 million years ago) age which outcrop, crops out in the southeast of England. The London C ...

of Walton-on-the-Naze (

Essex Essex ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East of England, and one of the home counties. It is bordered by Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, the North Sea to the east, Kent across the Thames Estuary to the ...

, United Kingdom). It was first named by Daniel T. Ksepka and Julia A. Clarke in

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

and the

type species In International_Code_of_Zoological_Nomenclature, zoological nomenclature, a type species (''species typica'') is the species name with which the name of a genus or subgenus is considered to be permanently taxonomically associated, i.e., the spe ...

is ''Avolatavis tenens''.

Gerald Mayr Gerald Mayr is a German palaeontologist who is Curator of Ornithology at the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main, Hesse. He has published extensively on fossil birds, especially the Paleogene avifauna of Europe.Mayr, Gerald (2016). ...

and Andrew C. Kitchener described the second species, ''A. europaeus'', in 2023. Mayr and Kitchener assigned ''Avolatavis'' to the family

Vastanavidae Vastanavidae is an extinct family of birds related to parrots and Songbird, passerine birds. They are known from fossils from Eocene sites in India, Europe, and North America. The vastanavids resemble parrots and the extinct parrot relative ''Qu ...

, which might be early diverging stem group presentatives of Pan-Psittaciformes or stem group representatives of Psittacopasseres.

References

Eocene birds Fossil taxa described in 2012 Bird genera Paleogene birds of Europe Paleogene birds of North America Green River Formation {{paleo-neornithine-stub