#anachronornis

[rajingdragon]

The family being stupid together

[thatonegaycactus]

day 38 of Draw Dinos Daily! Today is Anachronornis! Fun fact, this guy is a basal waterfowl, being related to ducks and swans!

[fabfire1234]

DinApril 2026: The Final Compilation

Hello everyone! I just completed my springtime 30-day dinosaur drawing challenge, DinApril. You can find the prompts here. Enjoy the results!

[otussketching]

Fossil Novembirb: Day 5 - It's Getting Hot in Here

It's the late Paleocene, and the climate is red hot. And it'll get hotter still. It's the start of an event called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM. At this moment, the Earth's climate warms very rapidly, and it'll gets really warm. How warm? Warm enough for rainforests in Europe, and for towering cypress swamps to grow in the Arctic. And as for these birds living in Paleocene Wyoming, their world is a steaming hot tropical wetland.

Primoptynx: One of the earliest known owls, and was quite large. Unlike modern owls it had talons more like a hawk, and it hunted during the day.

Sandcoleus: An early relative of mousebirds, and a climbing opportunistic omnivorous forest dweller.

Anachronornis: A peculiar kind of waterfowl, related to ducks and bearing a striking resemblance to the screamers of South America.

Paragrus: Despite its name, this is bird is not related to cranes. Instead it belongs to a group of flightless birds called Geranoidids, which are related to ostritches.

Lithornis promiscuus: An early relative of Palaeognath birds like ostritches and emus. Unlike most modern paleognaths, it could fly for long distances and even soar.

Lithornis plebius: Another Lithornithid, and like all lithornithids, had a long sensitive beak for probing insects from soil and leaf litter.

[a-dinosaur-a-day]

The Story of How I Helped Name Anachronornis

Story Time!

So, Dr. Houde - heretofore referred to as Peter - had been trying to describe this bird for AGES. Ages. Longer than I've been alive. But roadblocks have hit him at every turn - including multiple instances of unethical peer review practices

Anyways, I join his lab and he knows I need to publish, so he puts me on the project mainly on the phylogenetic work, because of course that's what I ended up doing

(I also was in charge of a few other things but they are boring or didn't work out)

As we are working, the tentative name for the bird is "Anhimops", which you'll note eventually became its species name

But I couldn't Un-See It (you'll know in a sec)

So

I email my very new advisor

Me: "Hey Peter, how attached are we to Anhimops?"

Peter: "Not very, why?"

Me: "Well, it's just... I can't unsee it as "Animorphs""

Peter (direct quotation): "What the Hell is an Animorphs"

Me: > sends a google image search link

Peter: ".... okay I'll come up with another name"

And from there, we now have the (much better name) of Anachronornis! With anhimops still thrown in for funsies. So that's the story of how I helped to stop a very unfortunate name happening for this wicked cool new dinosaur.

Also, now i get to say "what the hell is an animorphs" on a regular basis, because its hysterical. Win-win

[new-dinosaurs]

Anachronornis anhimops Houde et al., 2023 (new genus and species)

(Skull [A–Q, S], rib fragment [R], and back vertebrae [T] of Anachronornis anhimops [scale bar = 1 cm], from Houde et al., 2023)

Meaning of name: Anachronornis = bird out of time [in Greek, referring to the late occurrence of a form similar to the expected appearance of the last common ancestor of modern waterfowl]; anhimops = Anhima [genus of the extant horned screamer] face [in Greek]

Age: Paleocene–Eocene (Thanetian–Ypresian), 55.8–56.22 million years ago

Where found: Willwood Formation, Wyoming, U.S.A.

How much is known: Partial skeleton of one individual, including a nearly complete skull and forelimbs.

Notes: Anachronornis was likely a close relative of modern waterfowl, which are divided into two major lineages: Anhimae (the screamers, which have slightly hooked, somewhat chicken-like bills) and Anseres (the duck- and goose-like waterfowl, which have broad, spatula-shaped bills). It exhibits a mixture of features characteristic of both of these groups, with the shape of its skull being especially screamer-like. It may therefore represent a form closely resembling the last common ancestor of all extant waterfowl, which would make it a very important discovery for understanding how modern ducks and geese evolved.

The type specimen of Anachronornis had been mentioned in previous scientific literature starting in the 1980s, but was left undescribed until now. Anachronornis may have foraged near water, like modern waterfowl, though it does not appear to have been particularly specialized for swimming or wading.

Reference: Houde, P., M. Dickson, and D. Camarena. 2023. Basal Anseriformes from the early Paleogene of North America and Europe. Diversity 15: 233. doi: 10.3390/d15020233

[veloci-raptor]

Flocking Together #7

Scimitar billed nukupu'u

Anachronornis

Warkalania

Ichthyoconodon

[fabfire1234]

DinApril Day 11: A Paleogene dinosaur (that your father saw).

Welcome to DinApril 2026, where instead of recycling my list from last year, I made my father come up with the dinosaurs! Our eleventh day features a Paleogene dinosaur: Anachronornis anhimops! This male has chosen to use a Coryphodon as his soundstage, and the cimolestan is less than amused by the anseriform's singing while he tries to eat his ferns in peace.

When I learned that Anachronornis was from the Willwood Formation, I just knew I had to draw one singing a Will Wood song and turning this drawing into a total shitpost. I don't know if anyone else has thought of doing that before.

Coloration inspired by the Abacot Ranger breed of domestic duck from the UK.