Yuanjiawaornis viriosus
You 1.8 m (5.9 ft) tall
Yuanjiawaornis 5 m (16.4 ft) long
as long as 3 people standing fingertip to fingertip
- Length
- 5 m (16.4 ft)
- Period
- Early Cretaceous (145–100 Mya)
- Place
- China
- Food
- Herbivore
- Clade
- Dinosauria The clade containing all dinosaurs, terrestrial archosaurs with upright limbs.
Yuanjiawaornis is an extinct genus of large enantiornithean bird known from the early Cretaceous of present-day China. It is monotypic, with only type species Y. virisosus named.
Excavated in 2005 by a museum team in the famous fossil-bearing layers of Liaoning, it was named in 2015. Apart from its size, the build of Yuanjiawaornis is not exceptional. The exact relationships of the bird are uncertain, largely because the skull has not been found. Also the plumage is absent from the fossil.
What we know
- Named by Hu et al., 2015.
- Fossils found in China.
What we guess
The reconstruction notes for Yuanjiawaornis — soft tissue, color, behavior — haven't been written up yet. Only the recorded basics above are filled in so far.