''Eocathayornis'' is a

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 ...

enantiornithean The Enantiornithes, also known as enantiornithines or enantiornitheans in literature, are a group of extinct avialans ("birds" in the broad sense), the most abundant and diverse group known from the Mesozoic era. Almost all retained teeth and cl ...

birds that was probably more basal or "primitive" than related genera ''

Sinornis ''Sinornis'' is a genus of enantiornithean birds from the Lower Cretaceous Jiufotang Formation of the People's Republic of China. When it was described in 1992, this 120 million-year-old sparrow-sized skeleton represented a new avian sharing "pr ...

'' and ''

Cathayornis ''Cathayornis'' is a genus of enantiornithean birds from the Jiufotang Formation of Liaoning, People's Republic of China. It is known definitively from only one species, ''Cathayornis yandica'', one of the first Enantiornithes found in China. Se ...

''. These birds lived during the

Early Cretaceous The Early Cretaceous (geochronology, geochronological name) or the Lower Cretaceous (chronostratigraphy, chronostratigraphic name) is the earlier or lower of the two major divisions of the Cretaceous. It is usually considered to stretch from 143.1 ...

in today's

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

.Zhou, Z. (2002) A new and primitive enantiornithine bird from the Early Cretaceous of China. ''Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology'' 22(1):49-57. The

holotype A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...

IVPP 10916 was in 1994 found in the Boluochi quarry by

Zhou Zhonghe Zhonghe Zhou (; born 19 January 1965 in Jiangdu, Jiangsu province) is a Chinese palaeontologist. He described the ancient bird '' Confuciusornis''.. Zhonghe graduated from Nanjing University and earned a Ph.D. in Biology in 1999 from the Univer ...

in a layer of the

Jiufotang Formation The Jiufotang Formation () is an Early Cretaceous geological formation in Chaoyang, Liaoning which has yielded fossils of feathered dinosaurs, primitive birds, pterosaurs, and other organisms (see Jehol Biota). It is a member of the Jehol group. T ...

dating from the late

Aptian The Aptian is an age (geology), age in the geologic timescale or a stage (stratigraphy), stage in the stratigraphic column. It is a subdivision of the Early Cretaceous, Early or Lower Cretaceous epoch (geology), Epoch or series (stratigraphy), S ...

. It consists of the skull and the top half of the postcranial skeleton on a plate and counterplate. The bones have only been preserved as impressions. In 2002, Zhou named and described 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 ...

''Eocathayornis walkeri''. The generic name combines a Greek ἠώς, ''eos'', "dawn", with ''Cathayornis'', referring to the more basal build compared to the latter genus. 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 ...

honours

Cyril Alexander Walker Cyril Alexander Walker (8 February 1939 – 6 May 2009) was a British palaeontologist, curator of fossil birds in the Natural History Museum. He was also interested in fossil turtles. book, '' Smithsonian Handbook of Fossils''. He has also con ...

for his contributions to the study of the

Enantiornithes The Enantiornithes, also known as enantiornithines or enantiornitheans in literature, are a group of extinct Avialae, avialans ("birds" in the broad sense), the most abundant and diverse group known from the Mesozoic era. Almost all retained teet ...

. Zhou in 2002 placed ''Eocathayornis'' in the Cathayornithidae.

References

Bird genera Early Cretaceous birds of Asia Enantiornithes Fossils of China Fossil taxa described in 2002 {{paleo-bird-stub