Elektorornis chenguangi

"amber bird"

You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Elektorornis 5 m (16.4 ft) long
as long as 3 people standing fingertip to fingertip
Length
5 m (16.4 ft)
Period
Late Cretaceous (99 Mya)
Food
Herbivore
Clade
Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.

Elektorornis (“amber bird”) is an extinct genus of enantiornithean bird from the Late Cretaceous of Myanmar. The genus contains a single species, Elektorornis chenguangi, known from a partial hindlimb and a small amount of wing plumage preserved in amber. In life, it would have been slightly smaller than a sparrow and possibly used its characteristically elongated middle toe to probe for food. Elektorornis chenguangi is the first bird species described from remains found in Burmese amber, although other undiagnostic enantiornithean specimens have previously been found.

Alexander D. Clark and Jingmai O’Connor (2021) observed that extant animals with similar probing structures consistently have additional anatomical traits that allow the animal to penetrate a hard substrate, such as wood.

What we know

  • Named by Xing et al., 2019.

What we guess

The reconstruction notes for Elektorornis — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.