Sinornis 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 “primitive” features with Archaeopteryx as well as showing traits of modern birds. Its basal features include, but are not limited to, a flexible manus with unguals, a footed pubis, and stomach ribs. Sinornis is known only from the type species, Sinornis santensis. The generic name comes from the Latin Sino~, ‘China’ and the Greek ornis, ‘bird’. The specific name santensis refers to the provenance from Chaoyang county in Liaoning Province as Santa, meaning “Three Temples”, is a traditional name of the county.