''Changzuiornis'' is an extinct

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 n ...

ornithuromorph Euornithes (from Greek ' meaning "true birds") is a natural group which includes the most recent common ancestor of all avialans closer to modern birds than to ''Sinornis''. Description Clarke ''et al''. (2006) found that the most primitive k ...

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweig ...

from the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous ( chronostratigraphic name), is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 145 Ma to 100.5 Ma. Geology Pr ...

of present-day China. It contains a single species, ''C. ahgmi''.

Discovery and naming

At Sihedang near

Lingyuan Lingyuan () is a city in the west of Liaoning province in Northeast China, bordering Hebei province and Inner Mongolia. It is under the administration of Chaoyang City, which lies to the east-northeast. Administrative Divisions There are eigh ...

in Liaoning, a bird skeleton was excavated which was acquired by the ''Anhui Gushengwu Bowugan'', the paleontological museum of

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze River ...

. In 2016 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 specimen( ...

''Changzuiornis ahgmi'' was named and described by Huang Jiandong, Wang Xia, Hu Yuanchao, Liu Jia, Jennifer A. Peteya and Julia A. Clarke. The generic name combines the Chinese ''chángzuì'', "the longest", a reference to the long beak, with a Greek ὄρνις, ''ornis'', "bird". The

specific name Specific name may refer to: * in Database management systems, a system-assigned name that is unique within a particular database In taxonomy, either of these two meanings, each with its own set of rules: * Specific name (botany), the two-part (bino ...

is the

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power ...

genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...

of the

acronym An acronym is a word or name formed from the initial components of a longer name or phrase. Acronyms are usually formed from the initial letters of words, as in '' NATO'' (''North Atlantic Treaty Organization''), but sometimes use syllables, a ...

AHGM, the Anhui Geological Museum. The holotype, AGB5840, was found in a layer of the

Jiufotang Formation The Jiufotang Formation ( Chinese: 九佛堂组, pinyin: ''jiǔfótáng zǔ'') is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms (see ...

dating from the

Aptian The Aptian is an age in the geologic timescale or a stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early or Lower Cretaceous Epoch or Series and encompasses the time from 121.4 ± 1.0 Ma to 113.0 ± 1.0 Ma (million years ag ...

. It consists of an almost complete and associated skeleton with skull, compressed on a plate. It preserves feather remains and gastroliths. It represents an adult individual.

Description

''Changzuiornis'' has a long beak which reaches 68% of the total skull length.

Classification

''Changzuiornis'' was placed in the

Ornithurae Ornithurae (meaning "bird tails" in Greek) is a natural group which includes the common ancestor of '' Ichthyornis'', '' Hesperornis'', and all modern birds as well as all other descendants of that common ancestor. Classification Ernst Haeckel c ...

. The describers suggested that ''Changzuiornis'' might be cogeneric to the closely related ''

Juehuaornis ''Juehuaornis'' is an extinct genus of ornithuromorph bird from the Early Cretaceous of present-day China. It contains a single species, ''J. zhangi''. Discovery and naming The holotype, SJG 00001, was found near Lingyuan in a layer of the Jiu ...

'' found in the same formation, in which case the latter genus would have priority.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q43323396 Prehistoric euornitheans Fossil taxa described in 2016