Fissuravis weigelti
By José Carlos Cortés on @quetzalcuetzpalin-art
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Name: Fissuravis weigelti
Status: Extinct
First Described: 2007
Described By: Mayr
Classification: Dinosauria, Theropoda, Neotheropoda, Averostra, Tetanurae, Orionides, Avetheropoda, Coelurosauria, Tyrannoraptora, Maniraptoriformes, Maniraptora, Pennaraptora, Paraves, Eumaniraptora, Averaptora, Avialae, Euavialae, Avebrevicauda, Pygostylia, Ornithothoraces, Euornithes, Ornithuromorpha, Ornithurae, Neornithes, Palaeognathae, Lithornithidae
Fissuravis is our first Lithornithid! Lithornithids were a group of early Palaeognaths - so the group of birds including ratites and tinamous. Unlike the former group, both tinamous and Lithornithids are able to fly, with about the same flight skills as your average pheasant. Lithornithids were an extinct group of flighted Palaeognaths that lived from the Paleocene to the Eocene, and they had long slender bills for probing out food. They also had more curved toes that would have allowed them to perch in trees more so than any living Palaeognath. Fissuravis itself is from the Walbeck fossil location of Germany, living about 59 million years ago, in the Selandian age of the Paleocene. This makes Fissuravis an early dinosaur to recover after the end-Cretaceous extinction (and Lithornithids in general). Fissuravis had powerful shoulders for flight, which would have given it soaring ability like its relative, Lithornis.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithornithidae
http://fossilworks.org/?a=taxonInfo&taxon_no=105806
Mayr, G. 2009. Paleogene Fossil Birds. Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissuravis