''Eoconfuciusornis'' a
genus
Genus ( plural genera ) is a taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms as well as viruses. In the hierarchy of biological classification, genus comes above species and below family. In binomial nom ...
of extinct
avialan
Avialae ("bird wings") is a clade containing the only living dinosaurs, the birds. It is usually defined as all theropod dinosaurs more closely related to birds (Aves) than to deinonychosaurs, though alternative definitions are occasionally used ...
that lived 131 Ma ago, in the
Early Cretaceous of
China.
The
type species
In 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 species that contains the biological type specime ...
of ''Eoconfuciusornis'', ''Eoconfuciusornis zhengi'', was named and described by
Zhang Fucheng,
Zhou Zhonghe
Zhou Zhonghe (; born 19 January 1965 in Jiangdu, Jiangsu province) is a Chinese palaeontologist. He described the ancient bird ''Confuciusornis''..
Zhou graduated from Nanjing University and earned a Ph.D. in Biology in 1999 from the University o ...
and
Michael Benton in 2008. The generic name combines a Greek ἠώς, ''eos'', "dawn", with the name of the related genus ''
Confuciusornis
''Confuciusornis'' is a genus of basal crow-sized avialan from the Early Cretaceous Period of the Yixian and Jiufotang Formations of China, dating from 125 to 120 million years ago. Like modern birds, ''Confuciusornis'' had a toothless beak, b ...
''. The
specific name honours
Zheng Guangmei.
The
holotype
A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of sever ...
, specimen IVPP V11977, was found near
Sichakou in
Fengning
Fengning Manchu Autonomous County (; Manchu: ; Mölendroff: fengning manju beye dasangga siyan) is a Manchu autonomous county of northern Hebei province, bordering Beijing to the southwest and Inner Mongolia to the north, and lying under the admin ...
in
Hebei
Hebei or , (; alternately Hopeh) is a northern province of China. Hebei is China's sixth most populous province, with over 75 million people. Shijiazhuang is the capital city. The province is 96% Han Chinese, 3% Manchu, 0.8% Hui, and 0 ...
province. Its provenance the
Sichakou Beds are part of the
Dabeigou Formation
The Dabeigou Formation is a paleontology, palaeontological formation located in Hebei, China.[Hauterivian
The Hauterivian is, in the geologic timescale, an age in the Early Cretaceous Epoch or a stage in the Lower Cretaceous Series. It spans the time between 132.9 ± 2 Ma and 129.4 ± 1.5 Ma (million years ago). The Hauterivian is preceded by the ...]
, and were thought to be about 131 million years old. The specimen consists of a compressed skeleton that is relatively complete and shows well conserved remains of most of the feathering.
''Eoconfuciusornis'' was somewhat smaller than ''Confuciusornis'', but otherwise very similar with a pointed toothless beak. Compared to the latter it had longer legs and lacked a pierced deltopectoral crest on the
humerus.
''Eoconfuciusornis'' was assigned to the
Confuciusornithidae
Confuciusornithidae is an extinct family of pygostylian avialans known from the Early Cretaceous, found in northern China. They are commonly placed as a sister group to Ornithothoraces, a group that contains all extant birds along with their clo ...
. It would have been the most basal species known of that group, as reflected by the generic name and in conformation to the age ascribed to it, about six million years older than the specimens of ''Confuciusornis''.
References
External links
''Eoconfuciusornis'' fossil ''Eoconfuciusornis'' skull
Confuciusornithids
Early Cretaceous birds of Asia
Fossil taxa described in 2008
Taxa named by Zhou Zhonghe
Taxa named by Michael Benton
{{paleo-bird-stub