Archaeornithura

ancient bird tail

• archaios · Greek · ancient
• ornis · Greek · bird
• oura · Greek · tail

The name combines Greek words for "ancient", "bird" and "tail". It points to the animal's status as an early member of Ornithuromorpha, the bird group that includes modern birds. "Ornithura" ("bird tail") is an older name for the group of birds with a short, fused tail-end bone (pygostyle). The type species is A. meemannae, named for Mee-mann Chang.

Named by

Wang et al.

Year named

2015

Period

Early Cretaceous

Stage

Hauterivian

Found in

Huajiying Formation, Fengning County, Hebei Province, China

A small, early ornithuromorph bird. Birds are avian dinosaurs, so it counts as a dinosaur in the cladistic sense. It is one of the oldest known members of the ornithuromorph lineage. Only the type species, A. meemannae, is known. The species-name etymology and the stage are given from memory.